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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22619992">In the Shadows with You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangelamps/pseuds/orangelamps'>orangelamps</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Matter of Body and Soul [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ableism, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Fluff, Love Affair, Physical Abuse/Implied Physical Abuse, Secret Relationship, Soulmatism, descriptions of torture, non-con, sexually explicit content</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:20:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>103,801</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22619992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangelamps/pseuds/orangelamps</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate history | Clan Fraser and Clan Mackenzie have been at odds ever since Ellen Mackenzie and Brian Fraser wed more than 20 years ago. When Jamie Fraser, future Chieftain to Clan Fraser, commits to a secret romance of the body and soul with Claire Beauchamp, healer for Clan Mackenzie, history threatens to repeat itself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Claire Beauchamp &amp; Jamie Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Matter of Body and Soul [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011813</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>186</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Where the Road Takes You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story takes place in an alternate timeline/world, and it's slightly anachronistic, blending the elements of the 1700s with the 1800s and the 1900s while still being largely 1700s based. It also has elements of dystopia. There will be some details you may find to be inaccurate but for the sake of this kind of story, it belongs here. I wanted to write something a little different for fun.</p><p>Each chapter is averagely 20-25k+ words. I will be splitting this story into portions.</p><p>The characters belong to Diana Gabaldon, but their physical descriptions are based on the television actors' appearances, particularly Caitríona and Sam, rather than how they are described in the books. However I try to blend some book elements in other areas as homage.</p><p>Thank you for opening this story and I hope you enjoy this journey. This is my first Outlander fanfic.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In spite of Jamie's worldliness, returning home to Lallybroch had always brewed feelings of pride, joy, and security within him. <em>This is where you belong</em>, the grounds said every time he stood on them after being away for a duration.</p><p>The entrance to his ancestral home was paved by lines of trees with branches grasping for the clouds and thick clusters of leaves that shuddered furiously in the wind. There was a clearing at the tail of the road, and the way the trees had grown outwards created a large circle always made Jamie feel as though they had grown that way consciously, to create a perfect and unobstructed view of the castle up ahead, welcoming both strangers and family to the beautiful estate.m</p><p>At Lallybroch, his troubles only whispered to him. His daily schedules were enough to gradually fade them out, so that they didn't threaten to taunt him as they did when he went beyond the courtyard entrance. </p><p>For all that coming home always made Jamie feel, leaving home had made him feel just as much.</p><p>"So it's all settled then?"</p><p>Murtagh emerged through the courtyard arch, his boots making patchy soft noises over the crushed leaves, pebbles and crumbs of branches in the dirt path.</p><p>Cair, Murtagh's horse, trotted behind him, head bobbing with each step.</p><p>Jamie's answer was left in the way he pat the black neck of his horse, Donas.</p><p>Elspeth, a sweet mare, chestnut colored with a white heart on her chin, was the other horse he'd chosen to accompany them. She would carry along the wagon filled with jars of seeds, grains, books, some vegetables, agricultural plans, tool diagrams, and chests of clothes. She was the calmest horse in the stables at Lallybroch, so unlike Cair and farthest from the likes of the temperamental Donas. She would obey Jamie's orders without him having to move a muscle to signal something to her. She didn't need to be minded as much as Cair and Donas did. Neither would pull the wagon, the independent and protesting creatures that they were. Elspeth was content to do as she needed and do it with a simplicity one would liken to a well behaved and quiet child.</p><p>"Bringing Cair for a journey such as this?" Jamie asked. "Cair isna suited for long rides. Why no' take Nory? Or one of the stallions we've broken in last month?"</p><p>"Because Cair is my damned horse, ye coot," Murtagh answered. "And because so, Cair will do just fine on this journey. Besides, it's no' him ye need to be worrit about. It's yer Devil-taken beast ye should fret over. One of these days he'll toss ye off his back and trample over yer body like he's beating the dust out of a rug."</p><p>"Mebbe," Jamie chuckled, patting Donas' neck again. "Mebbe no'. The Devil-taken beast has my trust and I his. We have...an agreement."</p><p>Murtagh leaned in close to Jamie, clasping him on his back while his other hand gathered Cair's reins together. "Stuck wi' me on the road for the next couple of months, eh?"</p><p>"Aye, Da told me as much," Jamie smiled sturdily. "'Tis part of his agreement with Colum, that he be allowed to send my most trusted man with me. There's no one else I'd ask along, naturally."</p><p>His godfather's face was covered by bushy brows and an even bushier mustache and beard. His hair was dark, nearly as dark as his Da's, and nearly as dark as Donas' as well. It made him look intimidating, a right Viking, as though flowers wilted when he walked past them and grasses went ashen and dried up when he set foot on them. But truth be told, the man was warmth if its essence ever took the form of a person. His tenderness sheltered him like a cloak and he more trustworthy than Jamie's own right hand itself. He had looked out for him since his Mam died. And even more since his Da fell ill.</p><p>"Ye havena been to Castle Leoch since ye were a bairn," Murtagh muttered as he began mounting Cair. Jamie followed suit, slipping his boot into the stirrups of his own horse. "I ken the place weel enough from memory of when yer Da was courting yer Mam. 'tis from before. Things were different. It willna be the atmosphere yer expecting, Jamie. Willna be as simple as things are here."</p><p>"I'm no' a fool," Jamie glared at his godfather. "And I'm no' a coward. Nor do I revel in the idea of people suffering for the sake of what lies between our families. I'll do my duty as promised. I'm a man of my word like my Da. Ye ken that verra well."</p><p>"Aye, Jamie. But...ye dinna know yer uncles like yer father and I. Ye'll need to be careful. Shrewd."</p><p>"Och, my father already gave me this speech ten times since I woke. And I'll tell ye like I told him. It's no' like I'm going to fight a war," Jamie said.</p><p>"Didna imply so," his godfather pressed his mouth together like he always did when he disagreed with one's notions or prospects.</p><p>Jamie knew the truth of the man's thoughts. It's exactly what he was implying. It may not be a war fought over lands and seas, with muskets and broadswords, wars where mothers hugged their brave sons to their bosoms and prayed for their husbands until they were blue in the cheeks. Nay, Scotland hasn't seen a war like that since before Jamie's time.</p><p>It was a war of family against family.</p><p>A war of animosity between the Laird of Clan Fraser and the Laird of Clan Mackenzie.</p><p>It started twenty six years ago when his mam, Ellen Mackenzie, had rebelled against the wishes of her second eldest brother Colum Mackenzie when she chose to wed Brian Fraser, his da, rather than picking a suitor from Clan Grant as she was expected to. His mother not only insulted Clan Grant, but she broke the fealty she swore to her brother, the Laird of Leoch, and thusly to Clan Mackenzie and the lands that generations of Mackenzies had dwelt in. She swore life away at Castle Leoch to live instead at Lallybroch on Fraser lands.</p><p>Worst of all, all had known she had sinned. Because she lay with his father and fell with child with Jenny, his elder sister, before the two were married by a priest. They were handfast, his Da still bearing a thin silvery scar right beneath his palm, but its validity couldn't hold. The man who was there when they exchanged their blood oath had been startled into silence by Colum Mackenzie's ire and wouldn't speak of it no matter how much his parents pled for it. There were therefore no witnesses to bear the truth of their oath.</p><p>Other parts of the world advanced faster than the clouds spun around the earth. People turned from scythes to cantankerous machinery the size of elks. They've traded oars for engines made of coal and steam. Some places had carriages without horses. They traded religion and superstition for science and universities.</p><p>But Scotland, enormous island that it is, propped on its bonny glens and jagged crags and curtained by heavy grey clouds, held long and stubbornly to its traditions and practices.</p><p>Ellen had broken her oath to Clan Mackenzie.</p><p>To break an oath was to be marked by others and by god himself. You swore upon his holy iron. Only the courage of the devil would stir itself up in you to go back on your word that you gave to Him. There was no place with a depth deep enough nor a space wide enough to lodge the weight of repentance it would take to undo the damage wrought.</p><p>Jamie was a man of pragmatism. He'd been granted a better education than the average Highlander. He knew things of life on other continents. He swam in the great bright blue lakes of Rome during his studies there. His schooling in Paris required him to attend the operas and ballets where he watched bodies soar and heard voices soar even higher. He had schooling in Prussia where he spent a great deal of time working with machinery. He knew of geometry, of infrastructure, and astronomy. He knew of lawmaking and engineering and agriculture. He could speak more languages than the fingers on his hands.</p><p>But he wasn't so foolish to tempt things that stretched beyond his understanding either. All the finest education in the world that children of status were entitled to couldn't help one escape the pressures of superstition. You're not a born and bred Scot if you don't believe even an inkling in the powers beyond the physical world and spirits and such.</p><p>There remained some things about this life that arithmetic and science couldn't provide rationale for.</p><p>His mam died horrifically in childbirth only a few years after his older brother Willie fell ill and died within days from a sickness no one kent the source of. Jamie's back bore the amenities of war and his innermost part of his self knew that he was just as gashed and scarred on the inside as he was on the out. Da had been suffering and housebound for years. And Clan Mackenzie's crop lands have been withering since the new season began and now the people and livestock faced the threat of famine and worse.</p><p>There was no mistake that prices had been paid and are still being paid.</p><p>Jamie could never begrudge his mam or his da for choosing love, though. There was no stage grand enough that he could stand on to look down on the man and woman who made him, who raised and loved him and taught him almost all that he knows about life.</p><p>"'Tisn't what yer Mam would've wanted for her family. Ye ken that. Ellen loved her brothers and her nephews and nieces sae much. Time and pain didna diminish the warmth her heart cast upon her family. Besides, lad, ye may no' be Laird Broch Tuarach yet. But that Mackenzie land and family is as much yers as this family and this land. Always will be so long as them lungs of yers are puffed wi' air," his Da had told him after he read Laird Colum Mackenzie's letters to him.</p><p>There was never a time when the Mackenzies and Frasers were thick as thieves. But there was a nature between them that was agreeable and harmonious. For generations, they were welcome to cross each other's lands and welcome to be guests in each other's halls. They used to make trade deals with each other, selling and buying blades and crops and livestock. It was civil as it should be between the clans of the Highlands. Jamie never got to witness these civilities with his own eyes. It may as well been folklore. But it was as his Da and godfather told him.</p><p>"I'm no' trying to change things between the clans. I'm Laird-to-be. I'm a Fraser wi' a reputation of honor to uphold. Frasers dinna turn their backs on ones in need. Even if they're a Mackenzie. I ken everything there is to ken about land, about what makes it sing and grow and what makes it stifle and die."</p><p>"There's no denying it," Murtagh grunted in agreement. "Yer a sprite lad wi' fingers that roam the earth wi' the tenacity of the devil. Frasers are farmers. The finest crops of the Highlands are grown right here on Fraser land. Everyone kens that. Yer uncle sought ye out because you are the best person for the job. It just wouldna hurt if there was more time to prepare for this little adventure we're set to embark on, ye ken?"</p><p>"If there was any time to finally meet my uncles, finally meet the people I was meant to call family, there's no occasion more apt than the threat of a famine, ah, <em>athair-athar</em>?" Jamie scratched the underside of Donas' face. "'Tis funny. Colum writes a letter asking for respite, to, to put things aside. Says he surrenders his pride to ask me to help his men, help the land. Yet he couldna come here himself to deliver the letter. He sent one of his cousins as proxy. A matter of urgency such as this should light a spark in a man to do things himself. Wi' his own hands. Nay. My uncle's still the same coward who couldna see to it that his nephew and niece had a chance to know their family outside of Lallybroch."</p><p>Murtagh's mouth repeated its telltale clamping motion.</p><p>"My father always said that Castle Leoch was as much my home as Lallybroch's. But a home canna be a place ye've never kent. <em>This</em> is home. Here is filled with Love. Memories. Safety. Legacy. Things I'm used to. And I'm setting to leave it for a verra considerable amount of time," Jamie stuck his hand out and shuffled his fingers through the leaves that hung from one of the tree branches that grew low enough to touch. "Are ye no' going to miss it?"</p><p>"Don't be daft, Jamie. I dinnae live here."</p><p>"Nay, but ye're here all the time. So ye ken ye can call it home."</p><p>"I'm here to watch over ye, Jamie. If ye wanted to make a dwelling in the Lowlands, in a city like Edinburgh even though it's crawling with stinking Redcoats, or sail o'erseas to The Colony and be a vagabond, I'd be right there wi' ye. Home isna always a place, lad. Sometimes it takes purchase in people. In things."</p><p>Jamie's chest tightened and he felt his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.</p><p>"Ye make me feel like a lad, for I've yet to become acquainted with the meaning of which ye speak of, godfather."</p><p>"That's because ye <em>are</em> a lad, Jamie. Now, shall we get on wi' it? The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll be back <em>home</em>."</p><p>It was the first time that Jamie rode through the opening of the tree-lined road to Lallybroch with a heart heavier than an anchor in the sea.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They rode for several weeks and the weather that chaperoned their broad journey across rough terrain had been unusually kind. They prepared for heavy rain but instead were met with sprinkles of drizzle, nothing the wind from the speed at which they rode couldn't dry off in minutes.</p><p>Every few days they took small breaks, tending to their horses and making sure they were in good comfort. An exhausted or frustrated horse was good for no one. Between the galloping and the prattling of the clay jars and starch baskets, Jamie felt as if he and Murtagh were making the greatest commotion the highlands had ever heard.</p><p>The farther they went from Abercorn District, the more Jamie found his self regretting that his father nor sister couldn't personally send him off. His father was confined to his bed and Jenny was too ripe with child to be walking around, bound to pop like the cork of a wine bottle at a moment's notice.</p><p>Murtagh sang often in Gaelic, some songs Jamie remembered his mam used to sing to him at night. Songs about Lochs with treasure at the bottom of the sea floor and about mischievous kelpies. Even though Jamie could carry a tune about as gracefully as a baby foal taking its first steps, he crooned along anyways, voice cracking in between Murtagh's low but steady vocals.</p><p>About a quarter way to their destination point, they made camp in the deep borough of a glen that his godfather had directed them too.</p><p>It was descending and narrow like a stairwell, well hidden by long rocks, furnished by moss and trees that bent over as if to umbrella any interlopers who would take use of the stream of cool water rushing through the center of it. It was a perfect place to take a break, Jamie decided.</p><p>"Aye, this'll do us verra well," Murtagh said with satisfaction. "Tie off the horses near the stream. Let them wet their thrapples while I go look for something other than trout to fill our bellies for the next few days. Eyes up at all times, Jamie. Ye dinnae know who may try to jump ye."</p><p>"<em>Gabh fois</em>, godfather. Go on, then."</p><p>Off Murtagh had gone and Jamie made the choice to strip in front of the stream until he'd only been in his boots and scrub his body down as swiftly as he could. He thought for a moment as the horses looked at him in between their gulps that it was most likely their first time ever seeing a naked human being. He laughed as he cupped puddles of water in the palm of his hands and wet his self all over. He used the small nub of soap to work up a medium lather and scrubbed swiftly away. It was bloody cold, cold enough to snap his cock off, but he couldn't stand the smell of his own armpits and sweaty arse any longer. Jamie may be a farmer and man of the stables, but he was also Laird-to-be. He knew better than to wander around smelling any worse than he was supposed to for too long.</p><p>The privacy was good and fair. It spared him the worry of his godfather seeing his back. Jamie's soap sudsy hand rose over the arch of his shoulder down the hard lines of back muscle until the tips of his fingers were greeted by hard raised skin. He paused for a moment. Darkness began to bleed into his eyes. His fingers clenched from a curious splay to a recoiled fist. His chest tightened like a knotted rope and his breathing was heavy when he hissed like smoke from a cannon's blast.</p><p>He stayed that way for a moment that felt longer than it truly was. He tentatively spread his fingers once more and let them wander over the rough flesh. He seldom touched his back. It was a part of his body that still felt like a stranger to him. Phantom. Even after four years. He only saw his skin once after their physician, a older fellow from Clan Beaton that had healed his split flesh as best as he could, positioned him between two large mirrors.</p><p>He felt sorry for any eyes that ever had to lay sight on the skin. So Jamie did well to hide it. He didn't need to remind his self anymore than his own body had been forced to remember what happened to him.</p><p>It wasn't long before Murtagh had returned with his prize: a pair of grey rabbits bunched together in his fist by their ears. So rabbits they ate with a side of lightly roasted potatoes they brought along with them for the journey.</p><p>Making sure Donas and Cair and Elspeth were fed, they laid their extra tartans out before the fire to lay on top of. They hoped the wind would have mercy on them tonight and not blow their fire out to a whisper of smoke undulating upwards into the dark.</p><p>At night, the streams always sang loudest. The crackle of the fire had barely been audible at all above the coarse roar of the water. It was considerably dangerous to rest here. There was a chance that they could be set upon by hungry trotters and they were but two men. But they'd take it. They needed the food and rest. Fortunately, both Murtagh and Jamie were light sleepers and they kept a sturdy grip on their dirks and guns.</p><p>Happily full and glad to finally have his arse on the soft grassy ground than the tough curve of the saddle, Jamie dug into his sporran, fingers filtering through the sack until he found what he was looking for.</p><p>On the other side of the fire, Murtagh lifted his head. "Is that Sawny?"</p><p>"Aye...ye remember?" Jamie asked, a warm smile of pride curling over his lips at the man's recognition of a possession dear to him.</p><p>"How could I forget? Ye used to carry that damned thing around all the time when ye were a wee one. Ye wouldna part wi' it as if it were yer own heart," Murtagh chuckles. "Yer father used to take it from ye whenever ye were up to no good and yet ye'd always find it. He gave ye a thrashing every time but it mattered nothing to ye, nay."</p><p>Jamie's body shook with the force of his laughter, both of amusement and fondness. It was a snake that his elder brother Willie had chiseled for him a couple of years before he died. He twirled the wooden carving between his fingers, thumb tracing the swirling shape of its body and the letters S A W N Y that had been whittled onto its stomach.</p><p>"Weel, I outgrew it eventually. I nearly forgot it existed if I'm being honest. Seeing it again..." Jamie's voice trailed off as his mind gave way to memories of his late brother. "...Jenny gave it to me before we departed, when we were saying our goodbyes. She all but accosted me where I stood." He had been talking to wee Jamie, Jenny's firstborn and his only nephew as of now, who was still deeply asleep. He didn't want to wake him so left him with one of his ancient coins from his small collection. His nephew been asking him for one for so long, he thought why not give the wee'an something that'll make him so happy that he'll forget to be sore with his uncle when he doesn't see him for a long time? "She handed me the wee thing, blubbering and the like. She tried to give me Saint Anthony's cross for protection too but I swore to her I wouldna need it."</p><p>"It's frightening for her, she has never been parted from ye for so long...not since yer travels when ye were receiving an education abroad," Murtagh sympathized.</p><p>"She's nothing to be afraid of," Jamie said. And he meant it. "Ian will watch over her as her husband. And Lallybroch. He swore it to me, and to my father and to his wife. He may be crippled but he's still a sharpshooter and can take any man by surprise wi' his dirk. I trust him to keep his word. And so should she."</p><p>"She's still yer older sister, Jamie. Ye cannae be so clotheided that ye cannae see it's no' the protection of herself she's concerned for. It's yers. Ye may be grown and twice her size. But ye'll always be wee to her."</p><p>Murtagh was an only child and his mother and father died when he was only a lad. He never wed nor created any children of his own. He still seemed to understand family better than most. Perhaps it's his allegiance to them and how much time he's spent as a godfather that granted him this perception.</p><p>Jamie smirked, popping the last slice of potato in his mouth and laying on his back, holding Sawny up so he could observe the snake with the assistance of the orange glow from the fire.</p><p>He and his sister clashed harder than thunder clouds and more frequently than rain touched the ground in these parts of Scotland. Their love for each other was fierce, Jenny's mouse-like size bearing no hindrance on her fiery temper. The thought of her seeing him as but a bairn when he's very much a man brought a particular grin to his face. He couldn't believe how much he missed her and her pestering already.</p><p>"What are ye thinking about?" his godfather inquired.</p><p>"Nothing," Jamie lied. "And ye?"</p><p>"Yer mam."</p><p>Jamie's eyebrows rose high enough to touch the edges of his red curls that dangled over his forehead. He sat back up, the expression on his face asking his godfather, <em>why?</em></p><p>"I swore to her I'd always look after ye. Now I'm accompanying ye to the people that turned ye away when ye were a bairn. When yer parents brought ye to Castle Leoch, they did so in the hopes that a baby would bring good fortune and amity to them. Yer uncles had rejected Janet because she was conceived out of wedlock. By the time yer parents had ye they had already been wed by a priest for a few years then. Willie was born about two years after Janet but they didna try to reconcile the chasm between the two clans with him. When ye were born, we all kent that ye favored the Mackenzies while yer siblings favored the Frasers. It was as though ye were a painting of yer own mother. So they chose ye, seeking to show Colum and Dougal that Mackenzie blood and Fraser blood could flow together. That ye were still Mackenzies as well. But yer uncles were still furious over the broken oath. And yer parents had shown up without invitation and three bairns in their arms. And for some reason..." Murtagh's voice floated away.</p><p>"What is it?" Jamie asked, enthralled with details of his life that his brain had long discarded from infancy.</p><p>"Och, weel," Murtagh answered, jumping a little as if he'd been elsewhere. "It's like ye knew ye werena welcome there. Ye bawled the moment we entered the castle and ye wouldna stop wailing til after we left the walls of Leoch. Ye cried like yer soul was the most wretched thing in existence. Christ, Jamie ye were right bawling as though yer lungs were as sturdy as a ship's mast. Never kent a wee'an could be sae loud. I remember it verra well," Murtagh laughed. "Ye wouldna take to yer wet nurse nor to yer da. And yer father, och, Brian's skin was as red as tomatoe. But Ellen..." his voice softened. "She was sae calm. Like a boat on still waters. She had a gift, ye ken? She always knew things before others did. She said ye'd be back there someday and her brothers would be powerless to turn ye away."</p><p>The fire began to die and it grew difficult for Jamie to see his godfather's face while he spoke. All he could hear was his voice, low and gentle with recollection.</p><p>"I trusted her word. I kent the day would come when ye would fulfill yer mam and da's wishes to walk the halls of Castle Leoch. It was a matter of when, and a matter of if ye'd be ready for it. Are ye, Jamie?"</p><p>Heart thumping harder than a horse's hooves, Jamie tucked Sawny safely and soundly back into his sporran. He pulled half of his tartan over his body, wrapping his self protectively for the night.</p><p>"We're nearly there, are we no'?" he answered before dozing off.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They reached Mackenzie lands one and a half weeks later.</p><p>The border was marked by large flag posts with the Mackenzie family crest mounted on them. Making up the design of the crest was hills with flames scattered across them, encircled by a buckled belt. LUCEO NON URO, it read. <em>I shine, not burn.</em></p><p>There were armed men stationed at each one and- Iffrinn! - They drew their swords and muskets, and aimed them straightly at Jamie and Murtagh. Donas shrieked and nearly jettisoned Jamie from his back as he stood on his hind legs, rotating his front hooves in a fit of terror.</p><p>Herds of voices shouted in Gaelic for them to dismount promptly. Jamie knew he and Murtagh were large men, larger than the average Scot, but they weren't a bloody army. They had come with their dirks scabbarded and a wagon of grains and seeds, for the love of Christ</p><p>"Easy, man," Jamie whispered to his horse while Murtagh began arguing in Gaelic with the postmen.</p><p>They couldn't let them through without proof of Jamie and Murtagh's identities and reason for stepping foot on Mackenzie lands. It was procedural but laden with such an unnecessary aggression that Jamie took for a sign of how things were going to go while he was here.</p><p>"Show these dolts yer brooch, Jamie," Murtagh grumbled, flashing his own in the men's faces. "Bastards, the lot o' ye. Pointing yer weapons to Laird Broch Tuarach's heir."</p><p>Jamie pulled his out of his sporran, flashing his Fraser crest to the men.</p><p>"Letter explaining our business here, from yer Laird, my <em>uncle</em>, Colum Mackenzie," Jamie added, reaching into his saddlebag and procuring the rolled up sheet of paper.</p><p>Upon that, they withdrew their arms, stifled from the realization of what they'd done. They hadn't threatened bloodshed but Murtagh was right. It was most dishonorable to point a weapon at a chief's son and their chief's nephew especially when he had come to them non-threateningly.</p><p>One of the men whose name was apparently Dugan read studiously albeit over the paperwork, eyebrows raising each time he peeked up at Jamie.</p><p>"I trust the details of the letter are satisfying enough? Surely yer Laird briefed the lot of ye on my visit."</p><p>"Aye," the Dugan fellow said, his lips a devastatingly thin line, even when he spoke. "But ye can never be too careful, James Fraser, Sir. Our deepest apologies for the stramash. Ye are most permitted to pass. Continue along the path, it'll take ye-"</p><p>"-We ken the way just fine," Murtagh interrupted, mounting Cair once more. "Let's go, Jamie."</p><p>Jamie didn't know the way at all, actually. But he didn't need to. His godfather hadn't been having any difficulty recalling the way to Castle Leoch.</p><p>Strathpeffer Road, Jamie recalled from his geographical studies what the path was called. It was worn as any road would be, and darker than mahogany. It was a long and curving pathway, with cottages planted their on opposite sides like baubles strewn across the land.</p><p>It made more sense to Jamie why the Mackenzie crest was a cluster of hills. The Highlands were known for its mountainous regions but such regions were wide and at great altitudes. The Mackenzie lands became bumpier and more teeth rattling levels of uneven the deeper they went into it. The hills were like giant knots and welts that had swelled as if god himself gave the land a right thrashing.</p><p>Up ahead, Jamie could hear signs of busy activity. The castle was a large brown block from the distance, but as they came through the clearing, the large brown block was actually a bonny cluster of stones and mortar.</p><p>It was built on the tallest hill Jamie had ever seen used as a foundation. Most people would've used dynamite or shovels to ground the hills down, customize the land for which they would build their castle, but it seemed whoever designed the plans for Castle Leoch wanted to boast their impressive berth of architectural innovation.</p><p>There were mossy greens crawling up on the sides of the walls but as it descended to the ground, the green faded gracelessly to straw yellow. Jamie thought it was hay that was lazily scattered about but he realized it was overgrown and dead land. Christ.</p><p>There were straw huts tacked about where people were working and keeping their selves occupied. There was some trading going on, some knitting, some pottery making. Some of them paused their ministrations to glare at Jamie and Murtagh and the wagon that Elspeth had been carting along. Many eyes fell on their Fraser tartans. Jamie felt his self and his godfather stiffen with pride. <em>Aye, we're Frasers on Mackenzie land</em>, he challenged through his thoughts, as if everyone here could read his mind.</p><p>Their murmurs could hardly be called inconspicuous. Jamie merely nodded at the ones who stared him in his eyes. He wondered if the discord between the Laird of Fraser lands and the Laird of Mackenzie lands had been felt as strongly among the tenants here. Was it truly their tartans that garnered the attention or was it because they hadn't been anticipating visitors at the castle? Had Colum not told anyone here that they were expected?</p><p>"Good day to ye," Jamie said to some of the children that circled around their horses. They ignored the admonitions of who he assumed to be their supervisors as they peeked into the wagon to see what they had brought with them. They fluttered around him and Murtagh like crows over a carcass.</p><p>He's Broch Taurach's heir, he told his self. He's the representative of his people. He isn't here to change the bad blood between families, he reminded his self, he's here to help these people, even as they look upon him with hard and distantly curious faces.</p><p>"Yer horse is bonny, sir," one of the children, a boy whose hair was nearly as ruddy as Jamie's said. He had a wooden sword tacked to his hip with a rope and his shoes, fine shoes Jamie could tell, were mucked over from playing all day in the dirt. His eyes reminded him of his Mam's and for a moment too fleeting, Jamie was struck with a familial warmth he hadn't felt since he was a wee one.</p><p>"Thank ye, lad. What's yer name?"</p><p>"Hamish, sir."</p><p>Jamie opened his mouth to make his acquaintance with young Hamish but the boy was quickly distracted as the other boys tugged him along to bolt across the courtyard.</p><p>"I'll be damned...it's about as ugly as I remember it," Murtagh tilted his head, baring his impression of the expanse of the territory.</p><p>Jamie disagreed with him.</p><p>Castle Leoch was enormous. It usurped Lallybroch by nearly four times, judging by its scale. There was black smoke ascending to the sky in huffing currents from about half a dozen chimneys, Jamie reckoned.</p><p>It grandly stood five stories tall. The tower must've been built around stood about a quarter higher than the castle. It blocked out the view of the sky from here. The castle and tower was formed of rubble and ashlar stones, Jamie observed. Very fine masonry. Castle Leoch was younger than Lallybroch, he could tell from the veneer the stones still had. His Da had preferred the more Scottish rugged look at Lallybroch. Colum Mackenzie had different tastes.</p><p>Castle Leoch must entertain many aristocrats. This was a place meant to be the talk of the Highlands. There were also parapets lining all around the tip of the structure. It was tall enough for men as large as oak trees to hide behind as they kept watch for their targets below. There were turrets carved in that were fit for large cannons. Around the edges and corners were bruised with dark marks from gunpowder blasts.</p><p>It was imposing and brutal. A highland warrior recognizes a place where battles have been fought. Castle Leoch may have been newer than Lallybroch, but it had seen action too. It was a fortress, unlike Lallybroch.</p><p>Jamie tried to imagine coming here as an infant. Had he been terrified of its great scale? Had his father wrapped him proudly in his Fraser-patterned tartan beforehand? Had his mother held him close to her warm bosom, clutched him and fretted over him?</p><p>"Ye must be James Fraser."</p><p>A small mousy voice had nearly startled Jamie out of his boots as he dismounted.</p><p>It belonged to a young lass, by indication of tonality. Jamie's arm zipped out to brush his curls out of his face. His bangs have gotten too long, he'd have to cut them again as soon as he had a moment to his self. He looked harder at the lass. A very young lass, she was. Couldn't be more than sixteen, about six years younger than him. Her lips were upturned like a fish and her eyebrows were fixed in a permanent raise from either excitement or angst. Her eyes were large and fairly blue and her hair was like spun gold, tumbling messily out of its long braid. Aye, she was bonny. But something about how her energy bobbed about her put any attraction Jamie could have towards her at an impasse. He looked to his godfather cautiously before nodding to her.</p><p>"And ye must be Murtagh Fraser," the lass turned to Murtagh.</p><p>"Aye," Murtagh said. "And who might ye be?"</p><p>"I'm Laoghaire. Laoghaire Mackenzie. I was told by my grandmother when ye'd arrive to collect ye and bring ye inside. To be made presentable for the Laird, ye see. Ye must've rode here fast. We werena expecting ye to arrive for another few days. I ken because I waited every day to mark yer arrival. We've no' had visitors in a while. Weel, no' since-" Laoghaire Mackenzie babbled.</p><p>"Hush yer wheesht, for Christ's sake, lass," Murtagh cut in, his eyebrows furrowed deeply with agitation. She clamped her mouth obediently. Jamie almost felt sorry for the girl, looking to his godfather with an expression that came close to beration. "Where are we to dock the horses? Where are the stables?"</p><p>She brought them to Alec MacMahon, Master of the Horse for Clan Mackenzie, to take their horses off of them. He was short, a few cropped stark white hairs located over the dome of his bald head, and he had a gimp in his step. One leg was wrapped in more linen than the other. A recent injury, Jamie surmised.</p><p>Cair and Elspeth had cooperated just fine with him but Donas planted his hooves into the ground as Alec took a concentrated grip of his reins.</p><p>"Be careful wi' Donas. He's got a wicked temper, doesna take too kindly to new faces," Jamie warned, watching the horse master with sympathy as his beast of a horse put on a fervent display of malcontent.</p><p>Alec huffed, trying to appear staid even as he pulled harder, cursing at the horse in Gaelic.</p><p>"Dinna be aggressive wi' him, it only makes him worse," Jamie admonished. "Donas. <em>Shocair</em>, ye beastie." Jamie splayed his fingers against the horse's withers, applying the firm pressure he knew would soothe him.</p><p>"Touch him there like so while ye guide him and he wilna fash wi' ye. At least no' as much as acting like a snot nosed bairn that hasna had its supper."</p><p>"Och, I dinna suppose ye know a thing or two about horses?" Alec asked, bemused as his fingers rubbed over Donas' withers and the horse finally seemed to yield after a few more protestant shivers.</p><p>"I do, actually. I prefer spending most of my time in the stables. I'm right fond of it."</p><p>"I'll keep that in mind. Welcome to Castle Leoch mister..."</p><p>"Fraser. James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser."</p><p>"A Mackenzie Fraser...." Jamie watched as Alec prepared to remark on his specific combination of names but then a rush of snot and damp air shot from the tunnel of Donas' nose. "Weel....off ye go. The maids will fetch yer chests from the wagon and have them brought to yer quarters. I'll leave the baskets and vases here until ye tell the men what to do wi' them."</p><p>"Sounds good to us, Mr. McMahon." Murtagh said between a humph. Jamie had been doing his best to be a model Fraser but Murtagh had no interest in any part of Clan Mackenzie and wasn't afraid to show it.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Laoghaire had talked the entire way as she led them through the castle's corridors. Jamie hadn't paid her words any mind because he found his self taking in the interiors. The walls were grey and bricked, lined with torches and arrangements of vines that hanged between them. There were ornamental vases on long auburn tables situated up against the walls, should one want to rest between the commutes down long hallways, and tall doors that led to one room and another. It was very Scottish. It was nothing like the deep hued homes in France, colors both warm and cool and encrusted with polished gold. Nor like the ivory pillars in Rome with stairs of marble and mustard-colored paths of gravel.</p><p>A short and plump as pie woman was awaiting them. Her hair was light as straw, so frizzy it looked more like shredded cotton than what Jamie could only assume were curls. They were tumbling out of her white bonnet as though she had braved a great storm to get here. Her eyes were tiny and dark like molasses and so narrow they made her look as if she suspected them of a crime they had yet to commit. Her skin was creased like worn leather from use and age. There was a strawberry tinted flush splotched across her large cheeks. Her rouged shiny cheeks reminded him of the German paintings his Mam had with the little naked cherubs dancing across the page. When she smiled, she revealed a missing bottom front tooth.</p><p>"Hullo, I'm Mrs. Fitzgibbons but ye can call me Mrs. Fitz. Laoghaire here is my eldest granddaughter. She's permitted a month's stay at the castle while her father is out on business. She's under my watch, ye see? I'm the head cook, but I also do a bit o' healing and dressing as weel."</p><p>Jamie determined that babbling is a genetic trait, then.</p><p>"I'm James Fraser and this is my godfather Murtagh Fraser."</p><p>"I ken fine who ye both are, of course. Now let me ha' a look at ye," Mrs. Fitz' fingers were both coarse and smooth at the same time as they took Jamie's face in a steady hold. "By god, ye've the bonny blue Mackenzie eyes. And the height. And the handsomeness. Och, I dinna mean to coo over ye, Mister Fraser. Come, let's get ye cleaned and fed. Ye as weel, Murtagh Fraser. Laoghaire, m'dear go and fetch me a pail o' water and a bit of honeysuckle for the smell?"</p><p>When she was done grooming Murtagh, Mrs. Fitz immediately went and scrubbed Jamie's knees and hands with a rough soapy rag. She had fussed with him, asking him to remove his shirt and Jamie fussed back, protesting with the stubborn countenance that exceeded Donas' reputation. He refused to let anyone, let alone an auld woman such as Mrs. Fitz, see the flesh on his back.</p><p>In the end, Jamie's protest overpowered Mrs. Fitz's. Her dark eyes narrowed at him with warning. He had won this round for now, but she would see to it before he completed his stay here at Leoch that she got to give him the bath she intended for him.</p><p>He asked her as recompense if she would be kind enough to cut his bangs a little shorter. She ended up cropping off two inches of his hair all over his head. His red curls no longer dangled around his jaw. They spiraled around his ears instead. It made Jamie look younger, made him look his age, which wasn't his desire. When he made a face once Mrs. Fitz proudly showed him his new haircut in the mirror, she chided him in Gaelic.</p><p>"Dinna fash yerself. The ladies will still be taken to ye, even more so now. There'll be many a heart broken. Puir lasses."</p><p>"I dinna care about the ladies," Jamie rolled his eyes when he saw his godfather smirking from the other side of the room. "I came here to help wi' yer land. Wi' tending and such. To help keep yer bellies full and bring ye a healthy harvest. My duty is to the land, no' its lasses."</p><p>"Aye...weel...I'm glad o' it. Speaking of filling yer wames, ye'll be needing something to eat, I reckon?"</p><p>Mrs. Fitz screeched Laoghaire's name and the lass sped in and out the door with cool bowls of porridge.</p><p>"Ye missed breakfast. 'Tis lukewarm now but still perfectly edible."</p><p>The food protested during its soggy descent down Jamie's throat. He exchanged discontented and amused glances with his godfather, who stared at the food under two suspiciously downturned thickets of black eyebrows before decidedly scarfing down the sludge of food.</p><p>"Now yer ready to be taken to Himself," Mrs. Fitz declared.</p><p>Himself being Laird Colum Mackenzie.</p><p>The Laird's room was stocked with drooping tapestries that covered the stone walls. There were Celtic mythological tales told in the stitching and dyes and enormous paintings of what appeared to be esteemed Dukes and Duchesses and former lairds of Leoch. There were towers of candles congregating at every corner of the room and dried running lines of wax stuck to the brass holders.</p><p>Tall windows invited in copious daylight that illuminated the multitudes of bird cages Colum had erected throughout the room. There was one noticeably large brass cage propped near the widest and tallest window. It was filled with pairs of warblers and finches.</p><p>Chirps and twitters could be heard across the room, accompanied by the occasional light beating of wings and the unmistakable sound of beaks nibbling idly on the cylindrical strips of wood they were perched on.</p><p>Jenny loved birds too. Did she inherit that from her uncle, Jamie sourly pondered.</p><p>There were two men, one short and one tall.</p><p>Jamie's eyes fell immediately on the taller one. He was bald with a great bristling of a mustache and beard, peppered with grey, black, and white. He proudly bore Highlander regalia, carrying his dirk and sword with him, thumbs tucked into his belt that held his kilt to his body. His build was solid and burly. His legs were spread apart in a way that made him soak up all the space in the room, eclipsing the presence of the shorter man. Jamie knew from gleaning over them that the two were brothers.</p><p>The taller man must be Colum Mackenzie. His father had described the man as an unmovable force, with a voice so gruff he could shake the entire room with a single bellow.</p><p>The taller man stepped forward and bowed slightly.</p><p>"Dougal Mackenzie, War Chief of Clan Mackenzie. Welcome to Leoch," he clapped his large hands around Jamie's shoulders, taking stock of his physique. He then pulled him in close, hugging him tightly and then pushing him back again to survey him. "Christ, lad. Look at ye..." he had a proud smile on his face, but his beard was so dense, you could hardly see his teeth and lips. The way his cheeks rose gave his unabashed joy away. "He's the spit of her, is he no'?" He looked back at the shorter man, who was undoubtedly Colum Mackenzie.</p><p>He was the opposite of Dougal Mackenzie in every way. He couldn't have exceeded more than five feet of height. His hair, unlike Dougal's, was very long and fanned out down his back, bearing a faint semblance of a wavy texture. He sported a clean shaven face, contrasted to Dougal's bushiness. They must not be that far apart in age either. Their faces had equal weather and their eyes, Jamie imagined once blazed like sapphire, were aged, now as muted as the sky before a drizzle was set to come. He wore his Mackenzie tartan just as Dougal did. And his legs...</p><p>Jamie tried to swallow as discretely as he could.</p><p>His legs were as grotesque as Jamie's back. It was a jarring sight. They were like tree branches, skeletal, bent awkwardly outwards, and knobby, utterly deformed.</p><p>"Aye. Aye he is," the man's voice rumbled and rolled, just as his father said it did. "Colum Mackenzie, Chief of Clan Mackenzie and Laird of Castle Leoch. Welcome, nephew."</p><p>Dougal's physicality had seemingly controlled the energy in the room. But once Colum Mackenzie spoke, it was immediately evident who the leader and eldest sibling was.</p><p>"And taller than I am," Dougal's hands shot out lightning quick and pressed into Jamie's chest and arms. "And a body sturdier than Christ's Iron. Ye could strangle the waterhorse of Loch Ness wi' yer bare hands if ye were up to it."</p><p>The shorter man stepped forward, sturdily yet slowly, the slightest hints of pain in his eyes. Physical pain from his legs, Jamie reckoned. There was immense doubt that a man who wouldn't see his sister buried had felt anything when he set his eyes upon her only surviving son.</p><p>"I will hold a formal court where ye will be introduced properly but no' for another few days. I want ye to settle into yer rooms for the night. Dinner will be brought to yer quarters and ye shall a good night's rest from yer no doubt long and tiresome journey here. And then I want to hear all about how ye intend to use yer knowledge of the land to help us get through this challenging time."</p><p>"My Laird..." Jamie bent on one knee.</p><p>"My Laird," Murtagh said, bending on his knee besides Jamie. "Ye may or may no' remember me. Murtagh Fraser. Godfather to James Fraser."</p><p>"'Twas many decades ago," Colum answered, "But I recall ye always being at El-, at the Frasers' side. Ye've remained loyal to yer clan, and yer Laird. Good." Two sharp raps against the solid ground marked the strained steps Colum took and then he made a gesture to them both. "Ye may rise."</p><p>They both did, towering mightily over the man. But his uncle's eyes remained steeled on Jamie. It was different from how his other uncle Dougal had been looking at him. Jamie felt him sizing him up like cattle under inspection. Opportunity blazed in his eyes like the flames of the Mackenzie crest.</p><p>"Shake my hand, James."</p><p>His eyebrows tersely came together with confusion. Not wanting to make an emphasis of the awkward thoughts jumbling in his mind, Jamie reached out and did so.</p><p>His hand was so much larger than his uncle's.</p><p>"Fine grip ye have," Colum said. "Worn but cared for hands. Ye have the touch of a hard working man. Ye may be a man of property and entitlements but ye're a Highlander through and through. We value that greatly here at Clan Mackenzie."</p><p>"Aye. As do we at Clan Fraser. My father raised me just as so." Jamie could not tame the small smirk that found its way to his lips. "He didna want a Laird who only spent his days learning how silverware should be held with each meal and reading in Greek and Latin and studying politics to rule Fraser lands. I may be Laird-to-be but, I live like a working lad as well. Education is just as important as being able to provide for yerself and yer people wi' yer own two hands if need be."</p><p>"I see. And erm," Colum inhaled sharply, "How is Brian Fraser doing these days? I didnae get a chance to ask in my letters of inquiry."</p><p>"There have been kinder days, my Laird," Jamie answered stiffly. Their hands separated like a rope snapping from a sail and he broke from Colum's gaze, finding that he couldn't hold it any longer. He was careful not to look at Dougal either. The man still watched him with a hawkish bearing.</p><p>In truth, images fluttered in his mind like a colony of butterflies. This is where his Mam must've stood once while her brother, this very man, barked his declarations of banishments into her face. He could see her long swooping red curls touching her hips as she kept her head bent and her trembling hands submissively pressed to her abdomen where his dear sister Jenny lay beneath.</p><p>He felt the certainty of distance, unspoken words, and emotions that had hardened and aged like sediment.</p><p>When Jamie lifted his head back up, he knew his eyes were burning.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Murtagh had all but thrown a fit when Colum requested Jamie's company and Jamie's company alone for a ride. The man paced around the room like an anxious horse before a thunderstorm, his boots clonking on the wooden ground.</p><p>"I'll be fine, Murtagh," Jamie said assuredly, sliding his belt across his waist until his kilt felt secured, fabric rustled rigidly up against his abdomen.</p><p>"And what am I to do in the meantime, eh? Bugger around?"</p><p>"Aye, if ye like," Jamie laughed. His godfather's taut expression didn't yield. "Ye'll think of something. Dinna fash, godfather."</p><p>"I dinna trust him."</p><p>"I ken. I dinna trust my uncle either. But I've a duty-"</p><p>"Aye, aye, yer duty," Murtagh made a noise of concession.</p><p>His finger nevertheless tapped anxiously on his belt. "Fill yer belly first, Jamie. And do be mindful."</p><p>"I always am,<em> athair-athar,</em>" Jamie checked the contents of his sporran. "I'll tell ye everything when I get back. It'll be no more than a day, I think. Depending on how much land he means for us to survey today."</p><p>"Surely the man doesna mean to do this every day. It'd take months to cover all Mackenzie territory and I dinna think for a moment that all the land is spoilt. Ye've seen his legs, Jamie. He canna ride."</p><p>"I ken..." Jamie snapped his sporran shut and pat his godfather meaningfully on the shoulder. "<em>Beannachd an-drasta</em>."</p><p>He journeyed down the long hall and down the solid stone stairs. It was a nauseating descent, as the stairs were constructed in a downward spiral and there was very narrow space for navigation. His bedroom was across from Murtagh's on the fourth story. The lower levels were reserved from the workers in the castle.</p><p>He hadn't a chance yet to become too familiar with the castle. There would be time for that as the days grew into weeks and months.</p><p>The wind whistled and moaned down these halls, and Jamie couldn't escape the eerie feeling that nipped at his heels.</p><p>"James?" the voice startled him to the very marrow of his bones. He sharply turned around, his fist a strangled grip on his dirk, ready to unsheathe and plunge itself into the heart of his attacker. It was Laoghaire and her large blue eyes, still bright in spite of the low lighting in the halls. "Christ, Lass. Have ye come from the shadows?"</p><p>"I was waiting for ye," she said by way of explanation. Her expression and tone remained expectant, and Jamie's hand dropped from his dirk.</p><p>"Really? Ye didna have to do so."</p><p>"No, but I wanted to," Laoghaire smiled brightly, flashing her teeth, the gleam of ivory. "It's just... I brought ye a bag of oats? For yer ride. Mrs. Fitz, my grandmother, says sorry no bannocks today. The ovens arena cooperating."</p><p>She brought her hands forward, a small sac in the curve of her palms.</p><p>"Thank you, Laoghaire. 'Tis verra kind of ye, lass," Jamie took it from her.</p><p>"I added a bit of honey. If ye like it sweet."</p><p>"Aye, thank ye," Jamie squeezed the bag approvingly, feeling the grains grinding against each other on the inside. "I must be going now."</p><p>"Have a bonny ride, James Fraser," she called after him, her shrill voice echoing across the stones.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The last time Jamie had ridden in a carriage was during his former years while he was receiving his educational courses at the noble universities overseas.</p><p>Though Jamie had not been of distinctive nobility like most of his peers, he did come from noble blood nonetheless. His grandfather Simon Lovat Fraser was a Lord, and he himself was the inheritor of the minor nobility title Laird Broch Tuarach. He came from powerful and vast clan lands that belonged to his family for many generations. His father had been raised in Beaufort Castle, an establishment that many of royal and noble blood had spent their formative years in.</p><p>He wasn't a stranger to luxury and all the things acquainted with it. Lallybroch was filled with family heirlooms, rare gold and jewels, centuries old Viking swords, fine carpets and elegant chandeliers that would make even the King of Prussia blush. It was a grand and enviable estate and the arability of the land on which it stood reaped the Frasers a great sum of money to be able to send Jamie beyond the horizons of the oceans to learn as a future ruler would.</p><p>That meant being made to adhere to a way of life Jamie found terribly ostentatious for the time being. Other than to boast their places in elevated society, what use did being trussed up in ruffles and silks and tying ribbons in his hair and being transported around with his other mates in carriages have? He could've learned Greek and Latin in his kilt up against a rolling hill just as well.</p><p>He truly hated carriages. They were stuffy creaking boxes atop outrageously large wheels and they bobbed on the road like a glass jar in the swaying sea.</p><p>
  <em>Ah dhia.</em>
</p><p>Jamie was a horse rider. He loved the power and speed and sensation of muscle between his thighs. He loved the control he had. A click of tongue, a jerk of the reins, a tap of his heels, a hearty cry, and he could maneuver across the land with such fine technique, it was as though he were bonded with the horse's mind and soul itself.</p><p>In carriages, he didn't have control.</p><p>It spurred a terrible sense of claustrophobia in him. Much like being at the mercy of the sea, the motions turned his face greener than moss on a fat oak tree and made his wame toss and turn.</p><p>Much to his dismay, Colum Mackenzie rode around in carriages.</p><p>So Jamie had to try his best to keep some of the food Laoghaire had brought to him inside his stomach.</p><p>"Ye'll recall in my letters, I explain that the land's been steadily turning o'er us for months now. The farmers didna notice until crop yields began to drop significantly. We've had a high streak of rapid production and then suddenly nothing wants to grow anymore. The land's like a stubborn child. There's still green, but no' nearly enough sustain the amount of growth we need to feed the dozens of thousands inhabiting these lands encircling the castle. Never mind the cattle."</p><p>"Forgive me, but your Master of Agriculture should be here wi' us now, should he no'?" he was aware of the ulterior motive involved with today's excursion, but the glaring absence of the man responsible for running the land placed an unavoidably dubious feeling inside of Jamie. Surely he would know more about the affairs of the land than Colum, who didn't spend all that much time outside of Leoch's walls if his appearance was anything to go by.</p><p>"They're imprisoned at Fort William," Colum replied, his expression chaste, as though he had commented that it was a bonny day for a stroll along the beach.</p><p>"What in god's name for?" Jamie gawked. He briskly recounting his own personal time there. A shudder rolled over him.</p><p>"Clan matters," Colum answered, his eyes following the way his body quietly jolted. "Yer familiar wi' the place then, lad?"</p><p>Jamie's eyelids pinched. Would he have heard talks about Broch Tuarach's son being unlawfully imprisoned and tortured and chose to make play that he knew nothing of that fateful day in the Highlands? To what hope? That he would recount his firsthand experience there to him? Colum's gaze was passive and welcoming but further into the dull blue of his eyes, beneath the glass of his irises laid the mark of certain knowledge.    </p><p>Pursing his lips to display a cooled indifference, Jamie turned his head to the carriage window, the glares of bright blue daylight and the fresh scent of pine and heather mingling and playing on his senses.    </p><p>"I've heard stories."</p><p>Over the next few hours, they made several stops, for which Jamie was grateful for the mercy it extended towards his stomach. He was also glad for the chances to step out of the asphyxiating mist that surrounded Colum Mackenzie's person. His uncle couldn't get out of the carriage without great difficulty so he stayed and watched from the square window while Jamie got out to make his assessments.</p><p>He got down to his knees, brushing his fingers over the plants and earth to feel the starkness of its texture and digging into the dirt to check for moisture levels. Each time it was the same. The soil was terribly eroded and in dire need of ploughing.</p><p>Given how far the Mackenzie lands had stretched out, Jamie knew he'd have to assemble a team to oversee each region and that he'd have to train the men to follow the Fraser method, not the Mackenzie way.</p><p>He knew from how the grass had been growing around Leoch in ragged clumps and the overgrown herds of weed that it was in a very severe state of neglect. It was a lot worse than Colum's letters had conveyed.</p><p>Jamie stood up, tucking his thumbs into his belt, and turned back to look at Colum with concern and deepened wariness.</p><p>How long has their Master of Agriculture been imprisoned? Who oversaw land development in his place before Colum had finally reached out to his father? What were they doing in the meantime to assure that cattle and people wouldn't go hungry?</p><p>"My Laird, if I may give my assessment-"</p><p>"Please, dinna call me Laird when it's just the two of us. We are kin, James. Call me Uncle in the confines of privacy. Same goes for my <em>braithair</em>."</p><p>
  <em>We are kin...</em>
</p><p>If Murtagh were here he would've snorted gruffly under his breath like Donas often did whenever he was in the company of someone he found irksome and unpleasant.</p><p>"Weel...uncle...it's clearly in a state of agricultural neglect. It's no' a drought or else there'd be nothing but dried soil everywhere. And no' just here but in Fraser land as well. The MacLennans and Grants and Chisolms would've reported it as weel, I'd expect. Nay, these parts have lost its fertility because the soil is overworked. And its reproductivity isna being looked after either. I'll need to ken the former Master's record books and agricultural plans. See what he used for fertilizer and so on. And I'll need ye to commission the records from yer tenants who've reported problems on their plots to see how they've been managing as weel."</p><p>"Aye, aye, ye'll receive what all that ye ask. It can be fixed, though?" Colum asked.</p><p>"Aye...but wi' a considerable amount of time and some verra necessary changes, uncle. I ken the Highlands have seen many a famine. It's no' the most arable land especially when ye've got people who dinna understand it as weel as they think they do working it."</p><p>"Do ye ken how something like this happens, James?"</p><p>"Over-production, as I said. Ye can always tell. I've seen this many a season. When our tenants couldna make their payments in time for Quarter Day, and debts starting piling up, we've had to produce higher outputs of crops to ease out the balance. We were taking more than the land could give. In yer case it's far worse because the terrain here compared to everywhere else in the Highlands is more hilly and coarse. Wi' the altitude and lack of conditioning of the soil, 'tis a miracle Leoch hasnae fallen to destitution before. No disrespect intended, uncle. Tis a fine land nevertheless."</p><p>"None taken, nephew," Colum said. He gestured to the seat he was planted on. "Come back inside. We've to make our rounds back to Leoch. I had hoped to cover more ground today but I'm afraid I've back pains."</p><p>Jamie rose from his kneeling position, rubbing his hands together to clear the flecks of dirt from his skin. </p><p>"Ye'll have been struggling for a while then?" </p><p>Confusion passed over Colum's face. Jamie realized it may be taken that he was asking about his legs and he nearly blanched.</p><p>"I- I mean, overworked land only means forced production by way of necessity and desperation," he corrected as he stepped back into the confining carriage.</p><p>"<em>O mo chreach</em>, James. Ye truly are my sister's son. Even a man as blind as a bat would ken it. Ye've her shrewdness as weel. A mark of the Mackenzies."</p><p>Jamie's teeth ground against each other hard enough to spark a fire.</p><p>He didn't like his uncles bringing up his mam. He hoped it infuriated them as much as it impressed them that he carried the spirit of the Mackenzies. His father never let him forget it, never made him bury it in the woods of his mind. He wanted him to be proud of who he was. Had his uncles done so? Try as they might have to ignore their kin, had they successfully muffled the echoes of their existence? Or did it slip out into the night sometimes like a mist hovering above the shore, haunting them?</p><p>Silence eddied around them as the carriage driver took them back the way they came.</p><p>"It's the bluidy Britons," Colum finally said as nausea from the motion of the carriage retook possession of Jamie's stomach. His uncle's voice descended to a low grumble. He leaned forward and gestured to Jamie to do the same. "Ye'll have noticed more patrollers than ever have moved into the Lowlands. That entire part of the country will have been inhabited by them by the next few years, I reckon."</p><p>"Aye," Jamie nodded. He rarely went into the lower townships for this very reason.</p><p>"They've taken up plots here and there in the Highlands over the last decade and organized settlement posts even though they told us they wouldn't occupy any further territory upon clan lands."</p><p>They've been doing far more than just that. Since the eve of a dynastic union centuries back, the Briton Empire, ruled by a long string of generations of monarchs, had stood tall, its great shadow heaving over Scotland. And not just her but over her neighbors Wales and Ireland as well.</p><p>The Continental War had happened, a war of unimaginable scale, and it had ravaged the world to near destruction, teetering on the cataclysmic edge of biblical prophecy. In the aftermath, each country's governing leaders had sealed their ports. Alliances were broken and the ties of diplomacy that once bound countries to each other had unraveled, never to be retied again. Trade and immigrations systems had collapsed and rebuilt itself into something far more stringent and elitist. These days you needed more than a boat and ambition to be allowed to pass through ports. It was difficult for Jamie to ever imagine a time where one could explore the world on a whim. Or a time when Scotland belonged truly to herself and her people.</p><p>It was barely merciful, but Scotland had small jurisdictional exceptions that acted as points of contention for the Brits. Highlander territory wasn't directly governed by Briton's forces and clan lands had belonged to its inhabitants under the governance of Lairds and their War Chiefs for centuries. The Britons took a percentage of payments to the Crown on Quarter Day but beyond those realms, their dominion was largely limited in these ancestral hills.</p><p>But everyone had felt the stifling force of the Britons pressing their hands around the Highlands' throat over the years now.</p><p>It was like the sensation of breath fanning down your neck that you couldn't ignore. You willed yourself to stay still despite the gooseflesh sparking over the surface of your skin.</p><p>Though by law, the British patrollers had no rights to be on clan lands without permission from the Clan Chiefs or by order of His Majesty or in supposition of acting in His Majesty's interests, they circumvented it often. For years, they've been popping up and igniting small raids, thievery, destruction of properties, or further violent atrocities. Rape. Torture. Murder. Lallybroch had the honor of enjoying their vicious company on more occasions than Jamie would've liked.</p><p>They had often justified their abuses of power by declaring that the Scottish Highlanders were untamed savages who didn't appreciate the graciousness their benefactors relayed to them. They were a blight on the reputation of citizens under His Majesty's care.</p><p>The Highlanders may not be saints, rightly enough they had earned their reputation of being vigorously daunting men, as they were Viking descendants and Celtic warriors. But surely all man would elect to an image of the unconquerable than that of a coward.</p><p>It was impossible to determine where pride and shame were meant to meet, let alone how pride and shame could reconcile their selves with the way the mightiest empire had regarded the people of this green mountainous island.</p><p>Jamie knew from personal experience that the Britons were no stranger to ruthless barbarousness either. They were perfectly intimate with it, in fact. He had the welted skin on his back and near slaughtering of his sister to speak for the veracity of it.</p><p>If Scots were uncivilized beasts, he didn't know how many words there were in the Gaelic or English lexicon that could explicate the Britons and their hatred that they carried with them for anyone they deemed to be beneath them.</p><p>"The Brits have been putting pressures on Clan leaders to provide them with quarters and food as recompense for 'keeping the peace in Scotland,'" Colum continued to explain. "They've set their particular sights on Clan Mackenzie, sending droves of patrollers this way. We've been working the land sae bluidy furiously to turn crops over to them that they use to feed their men at their large settlement camps. We've lost quite an amount of profit in the process as weel."</p><p><em>Why not Fraser lands?  </em>Jamie thought. Not that he welcomed any British attention that way, but Clan Fraser had the reputation of being a great generation of farmers, and the land was known to have the best crop yields of all the Scottish Highlands.</p><p>The Laird-to-be in him recognized the potentiality of there being more interest to Clan Mackenzie than just their crops. The person in him who was once tied to a mast, ears ringing from the unending sounds of leather, ivory, and rope cracking in the sky, also knew it didn't matter what motivated them. They were treacherous men with a bottomless lust for cruelty.</p><p>"So I ask ye for help, no' just for the sake of keeping the goddamned Britons off my back, but so we dinnae die of starvation either. For I've a wife, a son, and many nephews and nieces of tender age that live here. No' to mention the tenants who're depending on Leoch's soil. It's a great undertaking I ask of ye, but I also ask for yer prudence. I havena even mentioned the involvement of the Brits to yer father, ye ken."</p><p>The carriage let out a sudden fearsome screech and it lurched side to side before wobbling back on all four of its wheels. The driver outside let out a coarse declaration in Gaelic and apologized fretfully to them. They must've rolled over a large stone that had fallen wayside from the hill they were coming around.</p><p>Jamie's arms shot out to the interior walls of the carriage to steady his self even as he was certain his stomach just flexed inside out. He was a man of a considerable mass. He was already taking up most of the space in the carriage. If he had fallen forward he would've crushed his uncle. His sharp eyes caught the way his uncle's hands gripped the seat futilely and how his legs, two twining slats of flesh, had been unable to keep him planted. Much to both of their horror, he was going to fall out of the seat.</p><p>Jamie saw pain flashing in his pale blue eyes when he reached out to touch Colum's shoulders to steady him until he regained his balance.</p><p>He had begrudged the man for not delivering the letter himself to Lallybroch. But having seen his legs, he understood why at once.</p><p>Since he couldn't ride horseback, he would've had to rely on transport by way of carriage. That would've taken twice as long as a single agile man on a horse.</p><p>Had his legs been this way nearly thirty years ago? His father never mentioned that his uncle was a cripple. Then again, the Mackenzie's chief and war chief were scarcely breathed about at Lallybroch.</p><p>His limitations were physical and visible to every eye that set themselves upon him. It must be difficult to be Laird under such conditions.</p><p>Jamie's lips twisted momentarily in shame. The skin on his back was striped and twisted like a rung rag. At least it could be covered with a shirt. There's nothing you can do to hide the very appendages that carry your body. Save for wearing a dress. But Colum was no fillie. He didn't hide his legs. He let the world see it.</p><p>It hadn't been long before they were back on Strathpeffer Road to Leoch. Their driver took them straight to the courtyard. The skies had darkened to a rich inky indigo and oil lamps were lit all around the castle perimeter. There was little buzzing about, as most people had gone to their cottages or to their quarters inside the castle now. Night patrollers were stationed around the circumference of the castle.</p><p>Dougal had been waiting at the entrance and beside him stood Murtagh, his hand on his dirk and his eyes darker than the sky above their heads.</p><p>Colum got out first, hobbling out of the carriage before Jamie could make any gesture of assistance towards the man's dismount. Jamie stepped out after him, breathing with gratitude for the solid ground once more. He walked behind his uncle, already gathering his plans in his head for the upcoming weeks.</p><p>"Afore I dismiss ye, James," Colum called when they got to the door, "At court, I intend to introduce ye to someone. She began as a guest to Clan Mackenzie but since showing her very fine skills as a healer, she replaced our former head of beatony. Her name is Claire Beauchamp. But her last name is pronounced more so like Beecham than Bowcham. Unusual, I ken."</p><p>"French?" Jamie inquired, marvel burbling in his head. He couldn't recall the last time he encountered someone who hailed from France.</p><p>"By paternal way, I presume," Colum shrugged and Dougal had laughed under his breath. Both Jamie and Murtagh looked to him, not understanding what was funny about that.</p><p>"A French woman in the Highlands? Is she a traveler?"</p><p>Travelers were often met in the Highlands with suspicion. Travelers belonged to no Clan, nor to any other distinct part of the world. It was difficult to obtain a Pass through Port to other countries if you weren't someone of particular status or profession. How on earth had a French woman come to a place like this? And in the custody of Colum Mackenzie, a strictly devout Highlander chief?</p><p>Jamie found his self inflamed with curiosity about this Mistress Beauchamp.</p><p>"She grows her own medicinal herbs," Colum informed him. "But as ye ken, the land isna agreeing wi' anyone as of late. She's been having to go to the Lowlands to visit expensive apothecaries and paying for medicines and mixtures and such. They charge a fare too great and I'm losing more money than I am saving paying for her surgery. It's a reasonable loss given she treats all the men and women here in the castle, sometimes going to the tenants as well. But I would prefer she make her own medicine as she once did. The less money spent on outside resources can be distributed elsewhere. Such as to the re-cultivation of the land. I want the two of ye to become acquainted. She knows her share of things about land. You will be able to help each other."</p><p>Murtagh's one telling eyebrow shot to his hairline. Jamie held the same thoughts. He hadn't been expecting to have a partner thrust upon him. Colum never expressed this additional condition in his letters.</p><p>"Oh, and James? She's a feisty lass wi' a verra sharp tongue. She can conjure up a storm wi' her words so dinna be afraid to muzzle the lass if ye see it fit."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The stones bobbled loosely under Claire's feet. There were millions of them, no larger than cherries, closely compacted together and scattered along the stretch of the creek. She imagined giants over six stories high huddled concertedly inside a quarry, breaching the stones with their bare hands, grinding them in their fists, and putting them away in large burlap sacks. She thought of them tip toeing into the creek and pouring the stones along the tart runnel of water because they felt they ought to garnish it in their brutishly industrial way that giant creatures might perceive as aesthetically beautiful.</p><p>Well it was beautiful. Her eyes hadn't had a chance to venture themselves upon all of the Scottish Highlands since she arrived here at the Isle of Skye with her uncle Lambert four years ago now, but nonetheless, its beauty had maintained itself in her eyes.</p><p>She supposed it could be imagined that such giants roamed these lands, that their iron muscled masses and feet the size of freighters had tumbled and shaken the earth, creasing and parting the soul and giving birth to these knotted hills and craggy waters, and sweeping valleys, and rolling streams, eddies, and creeks that unfurled through every part of this world like veins of the circulatory system netted through the human body.</p><p>For a woman of her grooming, education, and repertoire, having been raised by a respected archeologist and invited along on expeditions in countries that she may never return to again, it would've been frowned upon to entertain such notions. She seldom had dalliances with fantasy. Her uncle was adventurous and always invited boundless opportunity when it came their way, but he was a man who stood soundly in logic and science, not imagination and fairy tales. </p><p>Her upbringing under Lambert had made it challenging to connect with the Highlander people.</p><p>As Highlander children were brought up on stories of faeries and curses and spirits, Claire was brought up on the stories of advanced science practiced in early societies and how life had actually begun in the sea, not on land. While Highlander children fought with swords carved from wood on the grounds of castle ruins, she had been down in digging sites in her britches, sweeping sediment off the skeletons of bizarre creatures. While Highlander children chilled to the bone at the thought of passing burial grounds they deemed cursed, she had spent a great deal of time in tombs and taking part in examinations of cadavers, assisting her uncle Lambert by taking down notes and drawing anatomical diagrams.</p><p>Children brought up in superstition and fantasy had made for intractably suspicious and fearful adults. Medicine and science had crept too close to the edge of witchcraft for these people. Claire was also British with no anchor to any family or cultural practices, and she was an unwed woman. She had come to Scotland only with the credentials of being the assistant and niece of a highly regarded archeologist and educator. She was, for all intents and purposes, a walking ill-wish to most of the people here.</p><p>"Oh dear, uncle," Claire said to herself aloud, voice concealed under the continuous flow of the water, "Damn you for leaving me here."</p><p>Her shoes weren't the most ideal for this secret expedition but she simply had to get away from Castle Leoch while the Laird was occupied with a business outing. It was very rare that Colum left the castle. She had sent him along with an ointment that would abate any inflammation in his lower spine so he wouldn't be needing her services for the next few days and she was most grateful for the personal time it afforded her.</p><p>Court and its festivities had filled the great hall at Castle Leoch but Claire hadn't any involvement in it. Stuffing the pockets of her dress with rolls of bread, a cube of venison, and a block of cheese, she had retired to her room before the evening arose, feigning incapacity due to her monthly courses to avoid attending court.</p><p>Men were absolutely doltish when it came to the affairs of a woman's uterus. You could dab the corner of your eye daintily with a handkerchief and tell them snakes sprouted from between your thighs once a week every month and they would believe it. All men treat it as ghastly business, best left to a woman to handle alone and discreetly. Formidable Highlander warriors were no exception to the assumptive ignorance of their gender and cowardice in the face of things about women they didn't understand.</p><p>Hosting court at a time like this was remarkably incautious. Truly, how thoughtless could Colum be when food could go scarce at any moment? A peacock-y ostentatious display to appease a guest of honor felt more absurd than exciting. It only roused annoyance in Claire rather than inspired thrill like it seemed to for the other castle dwellers. Why, the walls themselves were vibrating as everyone began to fuss and twirl around the halls.</p><p>Before she successfully sprung her plan of attack, Colum had told her that it was vital she involve herself in the social atmosphere of court this time, as she needed to make her acquaintance with the honored guest.</p><p>The last time court had been held at Leoch, it had been in the honor of a Duke whom Claire had found to be boisterous, garish, and vulgar. The time before that had been when Claire herself arrived in the company of her uncle.</p><p>In full truth, she went through the trouble of evasion because she didn't want to be trussed up like a Giving Thanks turkey being placed in the center of the dining table. She didn't want Mrs. Fitz in her hair yanking her snarling curls to resemble some sort of elegant hairstyle and she didn't want to deal with the indiscreet stares and unsubtle gossip from the women and men at the tables. She always sat alone in the farthest corner of the room and yet she was still often the center of very unwanted attention. She hated having to endure that very much. The honored guest would have to wait!</p><p>When she first came through Port Skye with her uncle, they were embosomed by the eager and invitational energy of Clan Mackenzie. Uncle Lambert had a fascination that lingered into a fixation on the cultural links between Vikings and Scottish Highlanders. He wanted to study Norse-Scotch artifacts up close and learn about the Celtic practices of the Highlanders, how it shaped the people and what was of tangible value to them. He was working on Great Research, as he loved to call it, and the Highlands had been the key of many, to completing his pursuit.</p><p>He had picked this place because it was said to be the most beautiful castle among all the Highlander clan lands. And it really had been a sight to behold, though nothing in comparison to the ingeniously structured mud mosques of West Africa and tear drop shaped palaces in the East of Europe, if Claire had anything to say about it. Large castles flooded her veins with exhilaration nonetheless. She was British, after all.</p><p>But the novelty of Castle Leoch had eventually worn off of Claire like a shiny penny turned dull and green from perspiration and oxidization. It was exacerbated by the fact that she didn't like to stay in one place for too long, and her stay here had long been exhausted.</p><p>Her last conversation with her uncle had been about leaving Scotland, in fact.</p><p>"When will we leave, Lamby? Hasn't some place else tickled your fancy?"</p><p>He had pat her knee absently while a tobacco pipe hung between his lips as he scribbled onto a map. </p><p>"Settle down, bee. You know how long it takes to obtain a Pass through Port. We've discussed already that we mean to stay here for quite a bit of time. Besides, I thought you were enjoying the herb gardens here, bee?"</p><p>'Bee' had been her uncle's pet name for her because she was always buzzing around flowers and herbs ever since she was a teenager when she first took up a great affection for botanical studies. Claire had learned to combine it with her practices in medicine, fusing together a unique approach of surgical and herbaceous talent that set her apart as a healer so much so, it earned her a permanent spot as Clan Mackenzie's healer; a spot she was forbidden to budge from.</p><p>There came a great measure of recompense for being held against your will while doing something you have a fathomless passion for.</p><p>Claire swatted a cluster of midges away, though they hadn't yet acquainted their selves with her skin, she certainly wasn't going to give them a moment to consider it. Cautiously, she gathered her grey shawl closer to her shoulders, covering her bosom that was exposed by the cut of her dress. She would have worn one of her buttoned dresses but they were in a chest waiting to be taken to the laundry. More preferably, she would've worn britches, but it was so deeply frowned upon for a lady to be seen in pants in this country, all but one pair Claire managed to stash away had been snatched from her and repurposed for the use of the men of the castle.</p><p>She grimaced at the memory of it.</p><p>At least within her practice of medicine she was free. Free to mix and concoct and slice open and stitch close. Even if her efforts were recurrently met with scowls or initial bouts of opposition. Claire knew that she was a very reliable and efficient healer and as much as these Highlanders tip toed around her or liked to think sometimes that they had better ideas than she, deep down, they knew it too. Her surgery saw traffic every day and that was sufficient proof alone.</p><p>"Mistress?"</p><p>A voice of deep yet curious timber shocked Claire out of her very musings and she jumped, shrieking as she staggered over the pebbles and lost her footing.</p><p>"Ah- Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!" the words fell out her mouth in an anxious fitted jumble.</p><p>She turned around to glower at her intruder.</p><p>"Why, you bloody- Oh."</p><p>Good heavens.</p><p>A woman of Claire's height, merely a toe raise to six feet, afforded her the lifelong experience of being equal to or sometimes taller than a man. She was the same height as her uncle by the time she was a teenager. It was an uncomfortable experience most of the time, as it was always piercingly evident that a man didn't like to feel overtaken by a woman. This was hardly Claire's fault that her genetics made her this way, but such were the flow of things. And it was unrelentingly compromising for her.</p><p>To her surprise, this was a man Claire found that she had to tilt her head back and wind her eyes upwards to see. He was a large man too, by way of muscular mass. She could tell from how his tweed coat clung to his broad shoulders. Scottish, as obvious by his Highlander wardrobe. He wore a kilt with a tartan print she wasn't familiar with. Not a Mackenzie. A visitor, then.</p><p>Not a bandit either, it seemed. His clothes weren't ragged or torn nor was he in disguise with a mask with weapons drawn. He wore a brooch made of fine silver and it was pinned close to his shoulder where his tartan was wrapped across his torso. His dirk and sword were strapped to his sides but his hands were nowhere near them.</p><p>He pulled his grey wool tam off his head to reveal large red curls spiraling from his scalp, a miscellany of sharp cinnamon, rich scarlet, and bright copper all in one. It was a rather fascinating combination of ginger, no doubt brought to fruition by some sort of genetic war between one ginger parent and one dark brown haired parent.</p><p>"Is there something that you want? Do you require my services?" Claire asked. Rationality whispered that this man, no matter how smartly dressed, still might attack her. But it had whistled right out her other ear. The man had the certainty of kindness in his eyes and a calm, respectful hesitance in his stance. There were neither signs of rabidity nor predation.</p><p>"Nay, I-" the man's breath was caught. "A Sassenach?"</p><p>Oh just bloody great, another superstitious prejudiced Scot.</p><p>He caught the offended expression on her face and his eyebrows lowered ruefully. "Sorry. Colum Mackenzie told me ye were French. So I expected a French accent. He didnae mention yer Britishness. Usually dinna see any of yer folk around here unless they're with Briton's patrollers. I've never met a British woman before, if ye want to ken the truth."</p><p>"I am French by blood. And I haven't lived in Briton since I was a child so I can assure you I'm not nor have I ever been with Briton's patrollers. Are you going to avoid me like the plague, now? Or will you stare at me as if I have barnacles stuck to my face?" Claire challenged the man, the feeling of defensiveness arousing itself in her like the quick burst of a powder keg.</p><p>"No, no, I, dinna have much of a say in that anyhow," he made a sheepish expression which looked rather adorable, an incredible accomplishment for a man that was strikingly handsome. And handsome he was. She didn't really have a choice but to acknowledge it. It accosted her, nearly. "We're to work together."</p><p>"Oh, are we? And just who the hell are you?" Claire folded her arms into each other, doing her best to appear imposing to this redheaded giant.</p><p>He stepped closer to her and she made out the orange, nearly blond, light prickles of hair around his face, accentuating the path of his high cheekbones down, cleft chin, and, as her eyes inevitably followed, to his perfectly carved pink lips. Said pink lips were stretched into a warm and obliging smile.</p><p>"I'm James Fraser. Stand-in Master of Agriculture for Clan Mackenzie, Mistress Beauchamp."</p><p><em>This</em> was the honored guest she had avoided? Claire considered whether she regretted her decision or not. They were going to meet regardless. At least she would not be inconvenienced by a large and nosey crowd.</p><p>She had never seen turquoise eyes before, and this James Fraser was in possession of a rather striking pair of turquoise eyes.</p><p>"Oh," Claire said, dumbly. She shook her head. "Shit. I'm Claire Beauchamp, Healer of Clan Mackenzie." Here against my will, she neglected to add.</p><p>She let silence follow, anticipating him to chastise her for her foul language and to insist upon it being unlady-like and that she ought to have her 'arse skelped by her husband', as she was told often by men and women here, to which she would then say that she isn't married and he ought to mind his own bloody business.</p><p>But such a remark never came. In fact, his eyes began to glitter with something Claire could only liken to enjoyment. What the bleeding Christ? Was he <em>amused</em> by her coarse language?</p><p>"I ken fine who ye are, Mistress Beauchamp. Although...Roosevelt? Dinna ken any bible or religion where Jesus goes by such a name," the man chuckled. A fine sense of humor was in his possession, then.</p><p>"It's...a thing my uncle says- said."</p><p>"Catholic, are ye?" he asked. So full of questions, this man was.</p><p>"Yes. Now how did you come to find me here?" she had a few of her own.</p><p>"Ehm, Rupert Mackenzie directed me here."</p><p>Of-bloody-course he did, that lard gutted bastard. Rupert was one of Colum's infinite collective of cousins and an inconspicuous log-head that Colum had likely sacked on Claire to spy on and report for activities. He only did it when he was out of town, the weasel. It wasn't too much of a challenge to lose the man. He was an uncoordinated drunkard and a lecher, and when he wasn't gurgling whisky, he was trying to get a peek down Claire's breasts or find some other woman who was willing to wet his beak. Today of all days, he chose to have the wherewithal to commit to Colum's orders of tracking her down. That absolute prick.</p><p>"Ye ken we were meant to make our acquaintance at court but the Laird informed me ye werena fit for the occasion. That ye had taken up wi' the affairs of yer monthly courses. I trust ye're doing better now? It doesna last for more than a few days," the man said with an impish look.</p><p>"And how in god's name do you know that?" Claire's stony expression shifted into astonishment.</p><p>"I have a sister forbye, yer reputation precedes ye, which means ye're a verra skilled healer. One would ken how to treat such conditions expertly. It isnae precisely my place to speak on such matters, given I am but a man. But I'm no' a fool either, Sassenach." He flashed her a smirk. He was pleased with his deliverance.</p><p>Claire raised her eyebrows and her cheeks simmered. Her mouth fell agape, unsure whether it was due to her impression with his comfort with speaking of matters most Highlanders blanched and stuttered when broached with, or offense at how immediately he saw through her fallacy.</p><p>And did he just call her Sassenach again?</p><p>"For all it's worth, I willna go ratting ye out like some snot nosed bairn eager for a prize. Ye have yer reasons, I trust," the man nodded sympathetically.</p><p>"I most certainly do, Mister Fraser," Claire retorted. "I quite appreciate your forbearance."</p><p>He blinked and made a happy grunting sound. She never knew such a noise existed before that moment. What an invention.</p><p>"I suppose this means we've made our acquaintance now, Mistress Beauchamp," his fingers tapped jovially on his belt.</p><p>"Well, I..." Claire looked around, her words momentarily losing their selves, "I suppose we have. Am I expected to give you anything in return for your discretion, Fraser?"</p><p>"Och- nay!" his eyebrows creased together. "I meant it when I said I kent ye had yer reasons. I dinna want anything in return. I'm no' that sort of man, Mistress Beauchamp. And speaking in candor, just between the two of us, I'm no' exactly happy to be here, either."</p><p>When in god's name had she mentioned being unhappy? Was she made of glass? Had her entrapment acted as a buffing tool, polishing her varnish away until the cracks could be seen with the naked eye? He could see what was incontrovertible. She wasn't happy here. She desired nothing more than to leave this country on the next ship set to leave Port Skye.</p><p>"Well," Fraser said before Claire could respond, swinging his tam around his index finger before propping it back over his ruddy curls, "I'll leave ye to yer wee creek. I've got to get back to the castle and fill my belly or else I'll suckle on one of these puir wee pebbles."</p><p>He made a curtsy, an impressively graceful execution given his sizable mass.</p><p>She watched the man walk up the steep and pebbled hill with a lack of difficulty that made her envious.</p><p>An inscrutable intensity had abruptly taken up inside of her. She realized she was panting, words not coming to her, but she was suddenly anxious.</p><p>She didn't understand what compelled her to do so, and a part of her felt rather foolish given she'd come here to get some fresh air away from the stuffiness of the castle, but she began to walk unsteadily over the rocks.</p><p><em>Just who the hell are you, James Fraser? And why have I suddenly found myself drawn inexplicably to you after we've just met</em> <em>?</em></p><p>"Wait, sir!" she called after the giant Scot. He listened, a flash of red spinning as he froze and turned to her. "I shall accompany you on your return to Leoch. I'm famished as well. And I suppose we unhappy pair ought to get better acquainted on the way there." Claire said, groping her skirts as she struggled to catch up with her new partner.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"I'm nearly out of aloe, Mrs. Fitz," Claire sighed warningly as she dipped a spoon into the jar. The goop of translucent concoction slide off the slope of the spoon onto the small rag Claire had wrapped around her finger and she began dabbing sparingly at the angry red blotch on the woman's hand.</p><p>Mrz. Fitz had a natural cozy and affable ambience that extended to her physicality. Her hands were always warm and doughy like milk bread rolls. Her dark and narrow eyes might appear unwelcoming to a stranger but within moments of conversation, you'd learn it was because she was concerned for the wellbeing of every person that crossed her threshold and when she took in your appearance, it was with the hopeful intent of finding anything amiss that none other than she could balm. So untypical was it that Mrs. Fitz needed tending to. It was always her that was doing the tending and that was how the plump woman liked it.</p><p>"I find myself having to chastise you more and more to be mindful around the ovens."</p><p>"Aye, aye, Mistress Claire, but the bannocks willnae bake themselves, ye ken? Faulty ovens or no', what Himself desires, Himself shall get." Mrs. Fitz placated, hissing as the burn on her hand inflamed with the contact from the rag.</p><p>"Can't you let your granddaughter use the ovens instead?" Claire frowned as she continued dabbing. </p><p>"Och, Laoghaire? One should think so, aye? But she's o' flighty nature. Why, this morning, I sent her on laundry duty for the castle because she cannae be idle for too long or else she'll wander into trouble. And ye ken what I found the lass doing?"</p><p>Mrs. Fitz paused, her thin blonde eyebrows raised to Claire with expectation. Claire realized she was supposed to give an indication. So she nodded, gesturing for her to continue.</p><p>"Sniffing- yes- <em>sniffing</em> a man's shirt," Mrs. Fitz nodded with emphasis of each word. "She's taken op an infatuation wi' someone here. 'Tis verra crude business, ye ken. She ought tae learn what a woman should do, as she'll be seventeen come Yuletide. But weel, she's as fanciful as a wee'an. She simply isna ready for that life."</p><p>Claire knew who Laoghaire Mackenzie was.</p><p>She hadn't spent a great deal of time around teenage girls growing up. Her childhood and teen years were collectively spent in the company of adults and elders, professors, doctors, and explorers. Claire was very independent and self-sufficient as a teenage girl. She slept often on the ground either under an open sky or in a tent rather than on a bed. She hunted her own food and learned how to shoot while she was in the single digits. What ever she had pursued, she had obtained.  </p><p>She gathered the typicality of a teenager from other adults' discussions and fictional novels she'd read in her spare time. In some ways, Laoghaire acted as one would expect from someone her age. But there were other things about her that presented itself in ways that were inexplicably troublesome.</p><p>She stared at everyone with bug eyes and flitting mannerisms that made Claire wonder if you placed your ear to her forehead, could you hear wind gusting through the empty space behind her skull? She was always seeking guidance and orders yet she did not seem to listen to a thing anyone said to her either. She tended to abandon her tasks to go meddle with something else. She also often was in great trouble. Just last month she was beaten in the great hall and Claire had to make a salve to soothe the temporary welts on her back while she wept declaring the cruel injustices she endured. Later she found out she was whipped for making advances on a newly married lad and embarrassing both him and his wife. She had denied it, but Claire knew it to be true. The girl was troubling.</p><p>Sniffing men's dirty clothes were interpreted as a sign of infatuation? Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.</p><p>"I don't know why Colum insists on forcing the kitchen maids to serve bannocks," Claire murmured through tight lips, "We should be conserving the oats and grains for porridge. It's perfectly filling on its own and it may soon be the only thing we can depend on to eat."</p><p>"Himself kens best, Mistress," Mrs. Fitz said, her eyebrows drawing together, reflecting how seriously she took Colum's word. Had it been any other clan chief, then Claire would've been impressed with the devotion Mrs. Fitz displayed. But it was Colum, her imprisoner. He didn't sparkle with nobility in her eyes like he seemed to before the people's eyes.</p><p>"If you say so..." Claire answered tightly, dabbing continuously over the burn. She got up from the bench they were sitting on and went to one of the oak shelves where she kept rolls of boiled clean strips of linen stacked neatly on top of each other. She unfurled just enough fabric to wrap around Mrs. Fitz' chubby hand, snipping it with a scissor. She coated the inside of the linen with a thin layer of aloe and began folding it over her injured hand.</p><p>"You're to wash this burn occasionally in ice cold water. It will soothe the inflammation and prevent bacterial infection. You're to return to me every day to check your linens should I need to redress them and check for blistering until I see fit for you to return to the ovens, have I made myself clear?"</p><p>"Aye, Mistress Claire," Mrs. Fitz nodded. "I'll follow yer every word."</p><p>"If the pain brings you terrible discomfort, I can brew some rose hip tea for you or give you a dash of peppermint oil."</p><p>"Aye...aye... Ohhh," Mrs. Fitz perked up. "Did I no' tell ye whose shirt it was that my granddaughter got caught sniffing?"</p><p>"No," Claire answered as she tucked the tails of the wrap into a fold. She didn't care for gossip very much. Not that anyone here was keen to share scandalous details with a Sassenach. She appreciated that Mrs. Fitz never made her feel excluded, though because the woman's kindness was distributed equally to anyone in her presence, it wasn't enough to make Claire feel special, or wanted. Still, she found her curiosity had piqued for once. "Who did it belong to?"</p><p>"It belonged to the new guest of Clan Mackenzie. Ye missed his arrival and introduction in the great hall when ye were indisposed because o' yer monthly courses. Ye puir lass. Ye should have seen the picture he made. He makes an auld woman like meself blush, imagine what the lad does to a lass's heart such as my own darling Laoghaire."</p><p>"Might this lad be James Fraser?" Claire asked, wondering why her ears grew warm at the tips when she said his name. She schooled her face and tone of voice to appear just a little underneath impassive.</p><p>"Ye've met?" Mrs. Fitz's eyes widened. The lines etched into her skin with age appeared greatly prominent as she expressed shock at Claire's small reveal.</p><p>"Oh," Claire's head dipped, not wanting to lose her countenance before the woman's eyes. She hadn't considered up until this moment that it was in fact a secret that they made their acquaintance down at the creek after she had snuck away from the castle in pursuit of momentary privacy and to ease her nerves. "Um, yes. When I was looking for herbs the other day."</p><p>It had actually been a couple of days since she last saw James Fraser. The walk back to Leoch from the creek hadn't been long. The creek was only a breath away from the castle, so they hadn't the lengthiest conversation. Yet, their chatter had been enjoyable and easy. She had ended up laughing at a joke he made about bees and again about Colum's warblers and finches. Thinking about it made her flush with feelings lodged in the privacy of her chest.</p><p>James Fraser made an impression on her very quickly. She had no right to make claims on the man. But damn that Laoghaire child and her sniffings of his clothes. She had best keep her distance if she knew what was good for her. She surely didn't want to relive the experience of being thrashed before an audience at Leoch.</p><p>Suddenly Laoghaire's appearance in Claire's mind had morphed from an irresponsible air headed child to a salacious little brat. Claire's fingers buckled into fists as she rolled her hands over her pleated brown skirt.</p><p>Footsteps could be heard behind her head and a coincidentally and pleasantly familiar Scottish voice burred through the surgery.</p><p>"Mistress Beauchamp? Hope I didna startle ye this time."</p><p>Claire turned around and greeted the owner of the voice with a smile. Her hands unclenched. As did the rest of her body that she hadn't realized had wound itself up at Mrs. Fitz's gossip.</p><p>"Not this time," she said to him with a widening smile. "Hello, Mister Fraser."</p><p>He beamed- yes, <em>beamed</em> at her, making that pleased grunting sound that mystified Claire once more.</p><p>No tam nor jacket in sight today. He wore a vest that was dark cinnamon like some strands of hair on his head and his undershirt was ruffled, light splotches of dirt around the cuffs and sleeves. He'd been working the fields. Of course that was why she hadn't seen him since that day.</p><p>"Hello, Mrs. Fitz." James Fraser greeted the other woman in the room, who Claire had forgotten was even there for a moment.</p><p>"Good day, lad. Are ye hungry?" Mrs. Fitz got up as a dutiful caretaker would, already refastening the ties of her apron. "I was just about to head back to the kitchen. I can fix ye op a plate o' bannocks and some warm honey and milk for a glaze."</p><p>"Nay, ma'am," Jamie raised a deferential hand. "I'm no' hungry. I need to speak wi' Mistress Beauchamp."</p><p>"Oh..." Mrs. Fitz's eyes swung carefully between them. Claire tapped her foot guiltily, though she had no reason to feel so. "I see. I'll be out o' yer way, then. Thank ye again, Mistress Claire..." she began fussing in hushed Gaelic as she walked out the door.</p><p>It was the two of them now. Again. His size became overbearingly apparent and it started to assault her senses. Claire didn't know if she felt intimidated or aroused by it. Perhaps an interesting amalgamation of both? The foreignness yet potency of it threatened to make her delirious. Neither of them spoke, and silence had endured for moments. There was that look in his turquoise eyes that was the same as before. The look of interest and reticence all wrapped in one.</p><p>Claire found herself twining her fingers together. The air had evolved into a thick constitution, nearly tactile.</p><p>"Ye've a fine surgery, Mistress Beauchamp," he finally spoke. His eyes danced around the room appraisingly and Claire knew that he had truly meant it.</p><p>"Thank you," Claire grinned and shook her head deferentially, "I wouldn't say it's mine, though. The former healer here, Davie Beaton, had arranged everything like this. All of the apothecary cupboards and surgical tables are as he left them after his untimely death, according to Colum. It didn't seem right to change it. The people here appreciate the memory of Beaton being upheld. It brings a familiar warmth of a trusted caretaker back to them, eases the distraction of a strange 'Sesneck' woman treating them."</p><p>"I suppose there's bits of yerself here at the least, though," he postulated. There was a prying look and a half smirk on his face.</p><p>"Well...some things," Claire admitted. "Herbs, jars, linen, needles. Nothing of outstanding significance. It wouldn't be very different if I weren't here at all."</p><p>Fraser made a disapproving expression and he shook his head. His red curls appeared mostly cinnamon in the musky lighting of the surgery. The windows in here were docked low, as the room was located below ground, so they only caught few glimpses of natural lumination at this time of day. It could get very dank and stuffy in the surgery but with Fraser standing there, it wasn't so noticeable at the time.</p><p>He was a force in and of itself. She found that her eyes had to acclimatize to him. In his pleated kilt and buckled black leather boots, he didn't look like the other Highlanders here, despite him wearing the common traditional garb. He looked more like a handsome rogue coming to whisk her away on a swashbuckling adventure against ghoulish pirates and twenty-tentacled sea monsters.</p><p>It was how his face was set. It was sculpted in a way that would've made Michelangelo give up his hammer and chisel. He had a slight slant to his eyes and they were set firmly beneath his brows, ruddy like his curls. And he had a cleft chin, which stretched out into a sharp and handsome jawline. His cheekbones were pronounced and when he moved about the room, the shadows fell on his face like the buttery finish of a baroque painting.</p><p>He was- aptly put- stunning.</p><p>"I canna say I agree. I've never been here before, as ye ken from our talk before. Yer presence here feels right to me."</p><p>Claire didn't know what to say to that. Her body had responded, though. A warmth conceived itself in her womb and it danced and kicked lightly. Oh god. Speak, Beauchamp.</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>He made a Scottish noise of satisfaction.</p><p>"So," Claire screwed the cover back on to her nearly empty jar of aloe, trying not to mentally fret over how much it would cost to replace it when the need inevitably arose. "What did you wish to discuss?"</p><p>Fraser stepped closer to her, shadowing her as she began to tidy a few stray things up. "I need to take account of yer herbs and how ye like to grow them. I would like to learn about the things ye need and rely on."</p><p>"I have a herb garden here," Claire stated.</p><p>"Aye, Colum told me ye carved one out for yourself in a wee patch of land he granted to ye for use. If ye dinna mind, can ye take me there?"</p><p>Claire raised her eyebrows. "You want to see it?"</p><p>Fraser reached into his satchel, procuring a medium sized leather-clad book. He smiled eagerly, his teeth without flaw and whiter than she's ever seen on any man in the Highlands. "Aye. If it's nay trouble. Do ye have a lot of patients to see today?"</p><p>"No," Claire answered. And damn them if she did. This man wanted to see her garden. The one thing about her sentencing at Castle Leoch that meant most to her. No one had cared to ask about her garden before. When the land began to turn, she had moaned to Colum that her plants were no longer thriving in the uncooperative soil. But the Laird was occupied with extra affairs as always. So keen to keep her chained to this place, yet treating her and her interests as trite matters Despite the fact that he himself relied on her garden.</p><p>"But the herb garden's a bit of a walk away. You've clearly been working these past few days, I wouldn't want you to overtire yourself."</p><p>They both looked down at some of patches of dirt on his clothes. She hoped she hadn't offended the man. It veritably wasn't her intention.</p><p>His shoulders quaked with a light laugh. It was a small chortling noise yet so full of unoffended joviality. It made Claire break into a blushing beam.</p><p>"Dinna fash on my account. I was only doing a bit o' surveying and light land preparations. I'm a farmer, Sassenach. It takes a fair great deal to exhaust a man like me. The real work hasna even begun yet. Asides, I like yer company. I hadna gotten a chance to speak to ye in days and I've some free time now. Even if we are doing something related to work."</p><p>He liked her company. It brought warm pleasure to her to know that she had made just as much an impression on him as he did on her.</p><p>"Well in that case, I'll bring my personal record book along as well. It's a ledger of all the herbs I've been growing here for the past couple of years. Along with my original garden plans."</p><p>They received stares when they walked beside each other through the castle walls. Claire wasn't unaccustomed to trailing eyes here. But she realized rather quickly that she and Fraser would swiftly occupy the topic of many conversations and rumors, now having been seen walking together in synchronous mirth. She wondered if he too had come to the same conclusion. If he noticed all the looks darting their way, he didn't betray an indication. He stayed devoted in stride beside her, curls waggling with each step that he took, arms moving animatedly as he asked her about when she began her garden and she responded in like kind and enthusiasm.</p><p>Prying eyes be damned!</p><p>They left the castle and trekked over the open brushing glades to their destination. The earth was a gentle cushion beneath their feet. The sun was obscured behind the cottony density of white patches of clouds. It wouldn't rain today, it seemed.</p><p>It was a shame, Claire thought. Harvesting season was right upon them and the only thing truly thriving at the moment was inedible fields of heather and moss. There was a light fragrance both woody and fresh that came about this time of year. It sparkled in the air as though honeysuckle was trickling from the sky and she discovered that she felt unusually joyous today.</p><p>They came upon large sequoia trees and a little trodden path. From this distance, the castle looked shrunken and small. Claire was always amused by the visual. The land was far patchier here. There was mostly dirt and curry-colored dead grass. Tufty fistfuls of fresh green grass sprouted from the ground like overgrown hairs in an old man's ears, a sign that nature had still been trying its best, despite the abuse of the ground.</p><p>"Here we are," Claire announced almost timidly. "It's not much now. Most of it had been harvested already so it's rather barren. But there are still some things here or there. I planted flowers last spring, hyacinth and marigold but they've died out..."</p><p>There were straw dividers tacked into the ground, meant to section each portion of herbs by growth rate and usage. Some things couldn't be grown too close together because they were genetically incompatible. There was lots of trial and error involved with the running of this garden but with determination, Claire had found the perfect stride. Until the land began working against her, that is. Colum wouldn't offer her a new patch of land to start a new herb garden either. Not that it would've mattered if he had.</p><p>"I imagine it was a bonny arrangement."</p><p>"I suppose it was. It's the first garden I've ever grown. I've had a fascination with horticulture and herbaceous studies since I was a young girl but, well, I was raised by my uncle who was an archaeologist and a traveler so I never stayed in one place long enough to truly practice it in the manner I would've liked."</p><p>"'Was'? He's dead then?" the tall Scot asked.</p><p>"Yes," Claire answered. Her throat tightened and she felt a mournful pang thrusting up beneath the surface of her chest and she blinked rapidly to tame the salted burn in her eyes. "Two years ago."</p><p>"I'm truly sorry to hear it. I ken the pain of that kind of loss." Fraser's voice and face was ripe with sincerity. "To have someone who loved and cared for you just ripped away... I'm sad to hear it, Mistress Beauchamp."</p><p>"I...thank you, Mister Fraser." She repaid his words of condolence with a grateful smile. It had been quite some time since anyone had spared consideration for the loss of her dear uncle Lambert. It was hard to believe that Leoch had once been so welcoming for the excitement of new visitors. Her uncle was held in high esteem, his prestige garnering marvel and respect from the castle's inhabitants and Colum him self. It didn't matter that he was a 'Sassenach traveler'.</p><p>Then he died. And Colum had uttered a few words of pity while Claire's body crumbled to the ground and heaved. The sincerity hadn't been there. Not like it was there with Mister Fraser. There was no pretense or words carried out in impersonal and unfeeling protocol. There was a shared understanding and knowledge of a pain most cruel.  </p><p>Something caught Claire's eye a bit of a distance away. Out in the fuzzy stalks of a grass, a man stood, unmoving.</p><p>People didn't often come near her garden. They didn't have use or understanding for the things she grew here and there seemed to be an unspoken yet adamantly established consensus that the belongings of the Sassenach healer were not to be toyed with.</p><p>"Is someone bloody watching us?" Claire swung her hand towards the figure.</p><p>Fraser's curls on his head lopped to the side as he looked over to where she pointed. A noise of recognition emanated from the depths of his chest.</p><p>"'Tis my godfather, Murtagh Fraser. Ye havnay met him yet but. Weel, he's my shadow. He watches over me even when I dinna ask him to."</p><p>Claire squinted unapprovingly at the man, this Murtagh, who stood as still as a cheetah on its haunches, hundreds of miles of speed and prowess trapped in muscles and fur. She didn't like being followed. She didn't like when Colum's men did it and she found it made little difference that Fraser's man did the same.</p><p>"Don't you find it rather harrowing at times?"</p><p>"To tell ye the truth? No. He's done it since I was a wee lad, so I dinna really notice it," Fraser shook his head. "Does it make ye uncomfortable, lass? I can send him away."</p><p>""No," Claire shook her head, much to her own surprise. "I only wanted to know who he was."</p><p>"I must ask, why is yer garden so far away from the castle? It's a journey walking up these slopes of hills for bitty herbs. Could Colum no' have picked  place with less distance for ye?"</p><p>"Do forgive the harshness of my tongue," Claire answered, "But that man is outright conniving and has the heart of a bastard." Fraser chuckled at that. "I believe he did it on purpose, to prove a lady such as myself couldn't handle the distance and exertion. Not to mention my lack of gardening experience led me to accept this position very eagerly. I wouldn't have a say, though I truly wish I did. It would be easier if it were nearer to the castle. The trees here grow bent and lurching and sometimes they rob the herbs of necessary sunlight."</p><p>"There's nothing to forgive, Mistress. Our feelings arena dissimilar. I dinna think I've mentioned it to ye. Colum's my uncle. As is Dougal. They're my mother's brothers. Being here as their guest is my first time meeting them, actually."</p><p>Claire was taken aback. "Really? You've never met your uncles before? That sounds..." Well, not as preposterous as it should. She never met her relatives either, save for her uncle who carted her across the globe with him.</p><p>"It's a long story..." Fraser ducked his head in a furtive but failed attempt at hiding his blush.</p><p>Claire glanced towards the lurking godfather figure in the heather a few walks away from them and returned her gaze considerately to Fraser.</p><p>She leaned closer to him, a motion that made her realize their shoulders had been already touching this whole time. "Tell me."</p><p>"My clan is Clan Fraser. Ye ken Broch Mordha? Tis a weel kent village in this part of the Highlands and that's where my ancestral home is located. It's on Fraser lands. My father, Brian Fraser is Laird of Clan Fraser. I am to assume his position in a few year's time."</p><p>She was startled by this. A gasp escaped her parted lips and her eyelashes batted several times. She thought he was jesting for a moment. But there was a conclusive seriousness in his eyes. This man wasn't just a farmer at all, bloody hell! He nearly had as much power as Colum Mackenzie himself!</p><p>"My mother was Ellen Mackenzie," he said soberly.</p><p>"Colum and Dougal's sister?" Claire inquired, realizing she heard the name before. It was known that the chief and war chief of Clan Mackenzie had three sisters. Two of which were dead and a third had been living a life of bountiful affluence in The Colony, many waters beyond Briton's grasp.</p><p>"Aye. She and my father marrit against Colum's wishes and spited Clan Grant in the midst of it. Ye see, they had a contract between them and my mother was to be promised to a suitor from Clan Grant. Instead, she chose my father and aligned herself wi' Clan Fraser. My uncles banished her from Castle Leoch and they unofficially disowned me and my siblings. It's no' something I'm proud of. It makes me right angry to tell ye the truth. I dinna like to dwell on it."</p><p>"You needn't be embarrassed over that, Mister Fraser," Claire said. "It's hardly your fault."</p><p>"I ken that. Tis just..." he exhaled self consciously. "Ye must think my family mad."</p><p>"To tell you the truth, Fraser, I don't at all. I feel less guilty about my verbal besmirching of your relatives now. How unusually cruel it is to punish the innocent for the sake of wounded pride."</p><p>"It wasna just wounded pride, Mistress Beauchamp. I ken what promises mean to clan chiefs. My mother and father's choice cost Clan Mackenzie a great deal. But I ken that family should never turn their backs on each other either. So ye see, I'm torn. It feels like a betrayal to my mam and da, even though my da encouraged my being here. He kens that I am no' going to turn away when help is needed. And if I am to help, best it be something I'm good at, something I find joy in. Working land takes my mind off things. Leave me stranded on an island somewhere wi'out family or prospects and I willna take it as entirely hopeless. As long as there's dirt and I can grow things out of it, I will be content."</p><p>Claire felt her heart straining from his words.</p><p>"You're the only person that understands, then," she whispered. He met her eyes with a tense nod of affirmation.</p><p>"I've erm, told ye a great deal. Will ye keep it safe, Mistress Beauchamp?"</p><p>Of bloody course?! she started to blurt. His expression was so earnest it nearly broke her heart.</p><p>"You're the only person here that speaks truly to me, Mister Fraser. I've no one else to tell, even if I wanted to make it anyone's business but my own."</p><p>Claire had plenty cause to be appalled by how unguarded she was being with the man. It's only that this man was so bloody <em>easy</em> to talk to and he had mutual regards for her as well by indication of how he was more than forthcoming his self. She would gain nothing by betraying what he entrusted to her to another soul. It was the absoluteness of him. She knew what it felt like to have your wings ripped from the bones of your back and be rendered unable to heal properly. To be torn between hatred and humanity. She vowed to guard James Fraser's revelations to her. It belonged to her now. He had given her that. She would hold it close to her.</p><p>They sank to a kneeling position as their attentions shifted to the herb garden.</p><p>She named the plants to him in Latin, pointing over the illustrations in her book so he could see what went where. He wrote in his own book, penning everything she had told him. When her eyes flitted over to his book, she noticed small annotations in both Latin and Gaelic, along with scrabbles of arithmetic. Measurements, they appeared to be.</p><p>He had taken liberties as well, turning over some of her pages and asking her to describe what some of her herbs were used for. Each time he came close, she breathed him in. He smelled sharp and sweet and fresh, like the earth around them, yet distinctly fragrant and refreshing. Their fingers brushed over each other frequently while they compared notes and skimmed through each other's pages. Each time their fingers met, so did their eyes. They had mirroring blushes.</p><p>"Dinna dismay, Mistress Beauchamp," Fraser said later. "We can resurrect yer herb garden and ye can properly practice yer medicine and healing again. I'll see to it. We both will."</p><p>It was the way he had made it just as much his undertaking as it was hers that spread warmth in her bosom.</p><p>Then there was a squelching grumbling sound coming from his belly and he made a rather horrified expression at first. Both of their cheeks ballooned with laughter and giggles.</p><p>"I lied to Mrs. Fitz," Fraser said once the two of them finally got a hold of their selves. "I didna eat at all this morning. Truth is, I was keen to walk wi' ye. I brought bread and cheese and a bit o' whisky to wash it down. I'm happy to share it wi' ye, Mistress Beauchamp."</p><p>"Thank you," Claire gnawed her lip, appreciation for him fluttering in her belly, along with the bite of hunger. She watched as the giant Scot pulled the food from his satchel, a cloth tied around the small bundle. "Please, call me Claire?"</p><p>"Only if ye agree to call me Jamie?" he broke a piece of bread off for her and a small block of cheese and handed them to her.</p><p>Jamie? It was perfect. He looked exactly like a Jamie. Sweet like a lad but strong, firm, and intelligent like a man. Her redheaded Jamie Fraser.</p><p>You can't make claims on the man, Beauchamp, her conscience scolded her. Try and stop me, she dared back at herself.</p><p>"All right, Jamie," Claire said, warming the name on her tongue.</p><p>"All right, Claire." Jamie said, her name a rumbling whisper in his throat. His turquoise eyes were shimmering like a river under bright moonlight. It made her shiver.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. They Didn't Belong Here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>apologies for taking a long time to update this. life has been so hectic and challenging. we're living in very strange times. sometimes it will take its toll on me and my writing abilities. but here is the next chapter and hopefully whoever has stuck with this story finds enjoyment in this update. </p><p>thank you so much for all your brilliant comments in the first chapter. they're what has stayed in the back of my mind for all this time, fueling me. &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jamie had truly meant it when he conveyed to Mrs. Fitz that he had no amorous intentions or interests with the ladies of Leoch.</p><p>Courtship was the farthest thing on his mind for quite the time. It had been years, he thought, since he gave it any true consideration.</p><p>Jenny had a long list of lamentations and at the near top of that list was Jamie's solitude. His sister had been plying him for more than a year now to consider taking a mate and marrying a woman who would eventually inherit the title Lady Broch Tuarach. A lady who was fair and truly befit.</p><p>Highlanders who sought wives and husbands commonly married young and she never hesitated to express concern that he was skirting past the traditional age of wedding.</p><p>"Ye're twenty-two, now. Ye're about the same age Mam and Da were when they had ye, give or take." she blathered.</p><p>She often badgered him, demanding what made him suddenly disinclined towards love and marriage, to seemingly women themselves. On one occasion, she pushed as far as interrogating him on if he had developed tendencies towards dandies. It was a question that ended in an altercation of violent words and eye blackening slaps between the two.</p><p>His sister always asked the wrong questions and always made the wrong accusations.</p><p>Jamie was grateful that at the least, his father cared to show discernment and consideration towards his disposition. He chided Jenny for her bolstering whenever their heated conversations were in earshot.</p><p>For Laird Brian Fraser always believed in the sanctity of timing. And timing had no wish to be rushed or halted. He didn't believe in seizure at desperation's notice. He believed that if it were meant to be, then it would be, and that until these moments presented themselves, a man should walk their path in duty and faith.</p><p>Well Jamie ambled along his path scrupulously and with less protest than most.</p><p>Throughout the burgeoning of his youth, he had had affections for lasses.</p><p>He was but nine years old when he experienced his first fancy.</p><p>She was one of Jenny's playmates who only visited Lallybroch with her family on Quarter Day. She liked to put thick strips of cotton in her hair as makeshift ribbons, even though her tresses were so silky, they slipped out within the hour. Jamie used to collect them where they had fallen for her, shyly yet eagerly presenting her belongings to her in pursuit of impressing the lass. It was said that if a lad returned to lass what was lost to her, he would heal her broken heart and she would be indebted to him in her love.</p><p>It was to no avail. She found him pesky and cloying, much to young Jamie's dismay, as she was older than him by four years and her heart was set upon one of the stable boys at Lallybroch.</p><p>When he saw them kissing later that day as tenants were rounding up their families and chattels to make their return home, he had wondered if he was experiencing the heartbreak he so often heard Jenny and her playmates speak of.</p><p>His father gathered his sulking figure on his lap and told him 'she simply werena the right lass for ye'. He then sent him to the kitchen to retrieve a strawberry filled biscuit from the cook, and when a few days fled on by, his heart had recovered.</p><p>When he was twelve he had his first kiss with a lass he took a liking to. She had shown that she had no distinct inclinations towards him. For while he stood gob smacked, his lips tingling from her unexpected but welcome contact, she went and grabbed Ian Murray, who was standing right beside him and planted her mouth firmly on his next. He'd been mortified to realize he was nothing but an experimental conquest to the lass, and he refused to utter a single word to his best friend for a week.</p><p>When he told his father while they were in the cellar, his Da had chuckled endearingly, ruffling the curls atop young Jamie's head. 'She werena the right lass for ye, son.'</p><p>During his education courses in France, he became engrossed with a lass, one who promptly reciprocated. She was the youngest daughter of an esteemed Duke and Duchess and she spent many afternoons behind large bushes in the grand garden at the Universite teaching Jamie the meaning of French kissing.</p><p>Her breeding had both repelled and attracted many men to her and she bathed in the attention it brought her.</p><p>Jamie flushed with embarrassment, recalling how saccharinely smitten he was, so blinded and eager and clueless.</p><p>She was strongly attracted to him and had demonstrated as much. But she had 'plusieurs choix' as she kittenishly declared one morning, and Jamie, being the hot headed teenaged Fraser he was, challenged his immediate opponent, a thin French prick that dressed like a right dandy, for a duel.</p><p>But dueling was outlawed in France. The king didn't believe in men resorting to swords and pistols when dispute could be weighed in the court of justice. Well there were no laws the handled the matters of teenage-fueled infatuation. It was a matter that had to settled by measuring their worthiness of the lass's affections by breeding, title, and property.</p><p>Jamie's opponent had more nobility titles and property to offer the lass than he did. And in a cruel yet fair and square sweep, the French lad had won her hand and heart.</p><p>When Jamie wrote letters professing his anguish to his father. His Da, ever so tame, had written back in his swooping lines of cursive, 'she was not the right lass for you, mo mhac'.</p><p>He returned from his studies to Scotland at age eighteen, as handsome, tall, and refined as the Pantheon itself, with his educational credentials in hand and the official declaration that he was ready to assume his father's honored title. He was more than just a Highlander farmboy now. The lasses who found him treacly when he was younger had changed their reservations about him. And the ones who never minded him before had certainly done so now. Indulge he did, unashamed to receive their affections.</p><p>Then the British had stormed through the courtyard of Lallybroch. They ripped him from his father's arms and brought him to Fort William. Then they tore his flesh open and left him to swim in the metallic stench of his own blood. And then they took something else. Once they found what they sought from him, they trussed his maimed body on a wagon of straw and returned him to his family.</p><p>But he had not returned. Not in his wholeness. The very thing that the British took from him at Fort William was still there in that damp prison, untethered from his being.</p><p>Murtagh could see it. But not Jenny. And not his poor Da, who had afflictions of his own.</p><p>Jamie didn't talk to anyone about it. He simply couldn't.</p><p>After his body had healed, he thronged his soul into working over the land. When he wasn't out in the fields, he was devoting more hours than ever to the physical exertions of carpentry and breaking horses. It served to make his body stronger, intent on never being able to be broken again.</p><p>There were talks among the tenants of what had happened to him at Fort William. Most of it was flimsy conjecture at best. But many had concluded that what he must have endured behind those walls at the hands of the Brits were something only the devil himself could conjure up. They thought he must've walked through hell to leave that place. He couldn't fault them on that account. For he had.</p><p>Some people cast their eyes upon Jamie with pity. Their lips turned up with smiles of discomfort and reluctance when he passed them by. Others met him with a stern but careful countenance that without words, acknowledged his bravery and his survival.</p><p>He was still desired by women. But their dreams of sharing a romance with him died as swiftly as they were born.</p><p>His heart had become deaf and whoever called upon it would find that their voices fell numbly around it.</p><p>It was not aversion, as Jenny mistakenly believed. Aversion would mean that there was freedom of choice. Freedom of protest, of refusal. The power to decide what he did and did not want. It wasn't that Jamie did not want the things Jenny spoke of.</p><p>God put man on the earth, then woman, and he gave them the gift of marital union and childbearing. It the destiny of man. He had no greater desire than to have a wife and a family of his own. But he trusted that the hopes of fulfilment of such things would pend until he returned to the dust from which he was born.</p><p>His heart was not free like a butterfly feebly beating its wings, unsusceptible to the netted entrapment of a wand descending upon it. It was caged and unable to be claimed.</p><p>Jamie <em>did not</em> come to Castle Leoch on account of any expectations of gaining something in return. He didn't come to survey the prospects of Clan Mackenzie. Not their women. Nor to repair the things his uncles had broken. He'd made an agreement born from honor, from the Fraser way of life, to never shun those in need. Dwelling in the thresholds of the men who brought his mother great pain had undoubtedly soured Jamie's entire outlook on staying at Leoch.</p><p>What would Mrs. Fitz say now if she knew Jamie's resolution had changed?</p><p>He didn't understand it. Not one bit! But he felt it happen. He felt it as he felt the bones in his body with every step he took.</p><p>He felt it happen the moment he descended down that creek unto her.</p><p>She was a summation of beauty that eclipsed anything he had ever laid eyes on before.</p><p>When Colum told him that he was to work with a Mistress Claire Beauchamp, healer of Clan Mackenzie and a gardener, he was expecting an older shorter woman like Mrs. Fitz, but slimmer in build like Mrs. Crook, the head cook at Lallybroch.</p><p>He had not envisioned a tall woman, distinguished in how she carried herself.</p><p>He thought her hair would be tucked away into a neat bun, as women in this profession often had done, but when he came upon her, he saw a head of brown curls, coiling and flaring about like a raven spreading its wings. And when she turned her head at his startling, the sunlight had caught each strand and it was a kaleidoscope of browns- molasses, chestnuts, and auburns.</p><p>And then she spoke, parting the strawberry colored suppleness of her lips and unleashing a slew of curses and exclamations. Colum had admonished that her tongue was sharp. But this was something else entirely. Jamie never heard a woman wield such language so adroitly. He was endeared by it most immediately.</p><p>And her accent- <em>Ah Dhia</em> - he had anticipated a French accent. Parisienne or Orleanais.</p><p>But her accent was inexorably British.</p><p>She was a Sassenach and it should have made him recoil and have disapproving thoughts.</p><p>It should have.</p><p>But it hadn't. It hadn't at all.</p><p>Jamie was not beyond the grasps of prejudices. He would never be so trusting of the British. No Scot would. But Claire had not given him reason to be wary of her. Nor had it crossed his mind to be, really.</p><p>For what would a Sassenach traveler with a French name be doing in Scotland as healer for Clan Mackenzie? She was a rare seashell washed ashore. The waters brushed over her but it never pulled her back into the bosom of its azure depths and carried her through its currents back where she had come from.</p><p>Claire was someone in a place that she didn't belong. And so was he.</p><p>'You're the only one who understands, then,' she had said.</p><p>He would never have foreseen finding common company at Clan Mackenzie. For the first time in his entire life, he hadn't damned his uncles for their treachery. At least it meant that she was here.</p><p>Perhaps his attitude hadn't just been about Leoch, perhaps it had been about who he became after Fort William.</p><p>His heart was not free.</p><p>And then it was. With a suddenness that hadn't felt rude, no, it was more like a loose feather trickling through the skies as a dove soared overhead.</p><p>So he had given Claire his name. He had introduced his self as James, but he had given her permission to call him Jamie. It was the name those who knew him called upon him by. He wanted to be known by her.</p><p>'Jay-Mee', was how she said it.</p><p>No one ever spoke his name in that lilt before.</p><p>Though neither had spoken of it yet, the surety that they had forged something instantaneous and special behind the stones of Leoch had lightened the otherwise grim burden that weighed itself upon him at being here.</p><p>"Ye're in a cheery mood. What's gotten into ye?" his godfather had asked him when the two convened in the hallway.</p><p>He didn't tell Murtagh about Claire other than small necessary details. His godfather had an abject hatred of the British. He wouldn't be so kindly receiving of Jamie's feelings about the Sassenach healer of Leoch. Keeping these things to his self was fine by him.</p><p>It was more than fine by him.</p><p>What wasn't fine was how fleeting his interactions with Claire had been since their makeshift picnic in her dried herb garden. Without the distractions of work at his avail, he could think of nothing since but the next moment he would see her.</p><p>In the bundle of days since then, they seen each other only in passing. He wished to pull her to the side and ask her things about her day, but as fate would decree, he was often shuffled by his godfather and she was often in the company of a patient. They exchanged smiles and greetings, sometimes her chest would rise when she was about to say something else, before she was called upon by some other needy castle dweller.</p><p>Surely it wasn't one person's burden to bear of the welfare of all others'? Had these people not believed in a warm bowl of soup, a wee dram, and a nap to cure whatever it was that ailed them?</p><p>Jamie hated to have thoughts like some maddened beast, driven with the need to consume every living thing in the land, but these moments- mere glimpses- it wasn't enough.</p><p>Early this morning, rising with the glimpses of dawn, he sought Claire out at breakfast. His head had bobbed about to seek her figure out while he stood on line for a bowl of porridge. She would have been easy to find with her moon-white skin and her admirable height and dark curls. But she wasn't there.</p><p>When he joined the congregation of people in the Great Hall to eat, it occurred to him that he hadn't seen Claire take her meals in the Great Hall at all in the time he had been here.</p><p>"Mistress Claire is verra shy, lad. She doesna get on weel wi' the ladies here. And the lads och, ye ken how it is," Mrs. Fitz expressed with pensive eyes, appearing to feel sorry for Claire's social predicaments.</p><p>"Where does she take her breakfast then?" Jamie had asked her.</p><p>"Weel...I dinna ken the answer to that, lad. Mistress Claire likes her privacy. Why are ye making inquiries on her whereabouts? Is it tending ye'll be needing? I ken a few tricks o' my own. 'Twas I who did most of the healing for Leoch and Himself afore Mistress Claire and Doctor Lambert, may he rest in peace, came here."</p><p>"Nay, Mrs. Fitz. Nay bother at all. Just curious. Thank ye for the food. Ye're a fine cook." that seemed to satisfy the woman right enough.</p><p>It would appear that Mrs. Fitzgibbons was something of a gossip. Jamie knew the sort of twinkle that scandalmongers carried in their eyes once they thought they were on to something. He would have to mind his self around the woman.</p><p>He did consider lurking around her surgery, but he didn't think she would appreciate that very much. And so it seemed the hours of the day continued to conspire against him as did the day before and the day before that.</p><p>He staved off interactions with his uncles as much as he could for the ongoing course of time. He continued to wait for the documents he requested of Colum, understanding that it would take some time for all the paperwork he needed to be procured.</p><p>Colum was of reclusive nature and trodden by the affairs of a Laird as one would expect so avoidance hadn't been too troublesome a feat. Beyond their strange and revealing conversation in that cursed carriage, Colum hadn't seemed interested in Jamie's going-ons. And Dougal had ridden into the Lowlands on account of affairs only the lord himself was privy to, so the hawk-eyed man hadn't been around to ogle Jamie either.</p><p>Left to the waysides of idleness, Jamie decided to catalogue parts of the castle he hadn't yet roamed, knowing it would be wise to familiarize his self with the place he would be staying, with his mother's childhood home.</p><p>He thought of his mother with every step he took. He summoned visions of her in his mind of what she must have been like growing up in an elaborate fortress such as this.</p><p>His godfather preferred to keep to his self, twirling daggers and scowling at any passerby who stared too long at the either of them.</p><p>No one had minded him, though they did give him brief nods and acknowledgments. He may have been a Fraser among Mackenzies, but he was still the nephew of the Chief and War Chief of Clan Mackenzie. Never let it be said that Scots weren't a hospitable people despite minor indifferences.</p><p>Eventually he wandered outside where the dewy embrace of springtime came upon him. He was grateful for the mind he had to leave his jacket behind. It was warmer outside today. Unusual for the Highlands, even in the months of spring.</p><p>He stepped out into the courtyard where wagons of hay were just being loaded in for trading. There were sellers all about as usual. A dispute was taking place between two older men while the squeals of young children curled into the air along with the clomping of their feet as their bodies buzzed across the dirt.</p><p>The untroubled nature of children and the innocence that burst through them like sunlight behind a dissipating cloud reminded Jamie of life at Lallybroch. A peaceful familiarity lulled his senses. He basked in it, his face softening with fondness from the sight before him.</p><p>"Good day to ye, Mr. Fraser," the young strawberry headed lad who Jamie recalled was named Hamish greeted him.</p><p>"Good day, Hamish laddie." Jamie leaned down so that they were looking eye-to-eye.</p><p>The boy's expression tensed with interrogation.</p><p>"I just learned that ye're my cousin. Why did ye no' tell me when we first introduced ourselves?"</p><p>"I didna ken-" Jamie grunted with surprise. "Who's yer father?"</p><p>Hamish tightened his posture, raising his chin with pride. "Colum Mackenzie, Laird of Leoch, Mr. Fraser, sir."</p><p>Jamie stifled his shocked expression and tamed his features into a kind smile.</p><p>He was a Mackenzie! A cousin indeed!</p><p>It explained the familiar red hair atop the child's head. His father told him that the Mackenzies were known throughout Scotland's mountains for their fiery curls, although neither Colum nor Dougal were in possession of them.</p><p>His mother was. As was Jamie. He imagined Ellen's sisters, long gone and far from Scotland's reach, walked around with the same tussles of flaming spirals as well.</p><p>But Colum was Hamish's father? When he told him he had a son, Jamie had imagined someone older than this boy. The lad couldn't have been more than a breath's older than eight.</p><p>Jamie thought the child favored Dougal more than Colum. In fact he had the man's angled eyes and thick eyebrows. They were burgundy, almost, unlike the red on his head. His face was filled with youthful baby fat that one would find in all children but if you slimmed the blubber down, you could make out the high arches of Mackenzie cheekbones that Dougal, unlike Colum, had gone on to inherit.</p><p>Genetics had a tricky way of appearing in the offspring.</p><p>Both Jamie's mother and father were as tall as mountains yet Jenny had come out no taller than five feet and three inches. She was as wee as a gerbil.</p><p>Jamie remembered that his sweet brother Willie had auburn hair. It was neither red like his mother nor black like his father. And his eyes were the shade of sparkling champagne. Jamie remembered because sometimes when they played on the knolls, he would gaze up at his brother and watch how the afternoon light passed through his eyes. It wasn't a color that often ran in the Fraser bloodline. Black hair and rich dark brown eyes were a genetic trademark. But his Da had said that Willie had his great grandmother's eyes and hair.</p><p>And so Jamie could concede to why Hamish favored his uncle over his father. They shared common ancestors after all. It made him wonder ever more how long Colum had lived as a cripple. Not only had Hamish's tender age raised the question but the boy was never seen playing with the man and was seldom at his side or else it wouldn't have been so shocking that he belonged to him. All fathers should be able to ruffle around with their lads. Jamie was fortunate to have such memories of his Da. Who did his young cousin have to fulfill that?</p><p>"Do ye fancy a game of sea adventures?" Hamish asked promptly. "Ye can play wi' my mates and I." His tiny hand darted out and pulled Jamie by the sleeve of his shirt before he could even answer the child and led him to his small group of friends, all in rough shape from playing around. "This is Geordie, Malcolm, Duncan, and Tammas. Tammas, Duncan, Malcolm, and Geordie, this is my cousin, James Fraser."</p><p>They were a spry bouquet of boys all with wooden swords and adrenaline shooting back and forth in their eyes.</p><p>"Ye're Mòrag the waterhorse," one of them declared, pointing their sword squarely at him, "Ye cannae use yer real sword and they've swept all the sticks up for the ovens so ye'll have to evade us. We're sea bandits and we've gone into yer Loch and stolen yer treasure. If ye catch us, we lose. If we git ye five times each wi' our weapons, we win. Understood?"</p><p>The boys' gazes were expectant and determined. He wasn't going to be able to back out of this. Their group cannoned into a sprint, sprawling in multiple directions at once.</p><p>Being a man of a size such as his own, Jamie supposed he could amount to the monster of Loch Morar. He also knew the lads wouldn't be able to outrun him on their wee legs no matter how much spirit they had in them. Jamie had been very athletic his entire life. He had an outstanding collection of stamina, speed, and agility. So he pranced around knowing the little movement was tantamount to their big ones. It was a fun little game, and their wooden swords pricked him more times than he could count.</p><p>Allured by the spectacle, some of the people turned their attentions to them, endeared smiles plastered across their faces, and some cheering them on with light 'whoas'.</p><p>The boys ran in continuous circles, barely dodging carts and causing small fusses amid their game.</p><p>At some eventuality, Jamie feigned weakness and dropped to the ground. Excited faces clamored over him as they began sticking him relentlessly with their swords while their laughter hiked into the sky.</p><p>"Aye, aye, ye've got me, laddies," Jamie conceded. He shielded his stomach from their assaults. "I surrender. Enough wi' the pricking, the lot of ye."</p><p>"Jamie?"</p><p>He froze, thinking he ought to be losing it.</p><p>"That lady called ye 'Jamie'," one of the boys sniggered.</p><p>Jamie darted up and swiveled around to get a fairer look at his herald.</p><p>
  <em>Och! Claire!</em>
</p><p>His body tensed with unmitigated joy at the sight of her.</p><p>At long last, he thought, fortune had relinquished something good to him.</p><p>She wore a dress the color of sand and a blue tartan shawl snaked around her arms. Her curls were folded atop her head but some escaped her dark blue ribbon, dangling around her temples and ears like elegant vines. She was so beautiful that the sight of her could soften the ache in an auld man's bones.</p><p>"Ah Dhia, Claire, my mind was afar," Jamie swatted the dust from his clothes and shook the stray leaves from his riot of curls. "Hi."</p><p>"Hi," Claire's rosy cheeks filled with her smile. She spared a glance to his young cousin. "Hello, Hamish. I hope you've not gotten Mr. Fraser into any nasty scrapes."</p><p>"Nay, Mistress Beauchamp," Hamish professed. "'Tis just a game, ye ken?"</p><p>"Well- do you mind if I borrow your friend here? I do hate to call your game short, but it's rather important."</p><p>Hamish made a whine of protest but his friends pulled him back, resigning to the fact that their game had been irreparably halted by the Sassenach healing lady. It was adult's business that they best not interfere with. They would have to play something else without the accompaniment of James Fraser.</p><p>Jamie smirked knowingly at Claire as she stepped close to him. She lifted the straw basket in her hands. Its contents were covered by terrycloth but if he had to surmise its contents he was certain there was food underneath it.</p><p>"I just finished tending to a patient with a rather nasty boil that he let fester for far too long. It became so infected, he ended up with a high fever," there was a concoction of giddiness and thrill in her voice. "His wife could barely stomach the sight of it but he insisted she hold his hand. I don't know which one did most of the whimpering. They were both rather impressed with my composure in the end. Now I'm quite famished. I sought you out in the kitchen for lunch but Mrs. Fitz told me you hadn't come for your second meal of the day. I thought you must be working, so I would bring you some. What do I find? Jamie Fraser flat on his back being knackered by a mob of cackling children. Having quite the adventure, were you?" she quirked her eyebrows.</p><p>"Weel, I'll admit, I was... Hamish is my cousin, ye see."</p><p>"I should think as much. Colum is your uncle."</p><p>"Hadna known Hamish was his child, Sassenach. Dinna tease me," Jamie tapped his foot in jest. "Today has been a verra slow day. I feel my head may fall clean off its shoulders."</p><p>"Oh goodness," Claire tilted her head, smiling playfully as she pretended to medically assess him. "Then you should've come to my surgery to see me, Jamie."</p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jamie followed behind Claire, enthused. Their feet moved in indubitable synchrony over the soft thatches of leaves and grass. Every detour Claire made, he echoed. He didn't know where she was taking him, and he didn't care. She could invite him straight into the rank hollow of a dung heap and he would be her most proud beneficiary. That was how great the breadth of his joy at the sight of her was. Though he walked behind her, he still felt as though they were beside each other.</p><p>The skirts of Claire's dress scraped against the ground, blades of grass unfurling under the tweed-like fabric much like it would under the blade of a plow. He had offered to carry the basket for her but she insisted, rocking it to and fro as she rambled about her recent surgical procedure. Jamie listened intently to her crude descriptions of precise lacerations, dribbling blood, and oozing puss.</p><p>Her curls beneath the sun were almost diaphanous, browns brightening to sparkling hues while her head swayed with each intonation.</p><p><em>Mo nighean donn</em>, he thought adoringly.</p><p>He knew of many men and women who had to have their boils incised. It seemed simple enough with little suffering and complications involved. But Claire's passionate and expert language had turned the procedure into a fine work of art. Her intelligence followed her like a phantom and Jamie found his self in deeper wonderment of her.</p><p>It seemed that they arrived at their destination once Claire pulled the terrycloth from her basket and pulled out a blanket with thousands of tiny rolls of lint on it and unreeled it upon the ground.</p><p>The skirts of her dress crunched against itself as she crossed her legs beneath her.</p><p>"Is this where ye eat?" Jamie asked, his eyebrows raised to the heavens.</p><p>"The stables? Yes." Claire responded plainly. "Not very ladylike, do you think?"</p><p>Jamie realized she was testing him and considered his answer.</p><p>"Weel, Sassenach, I wouldna say that. Only that ye're a verra surprising woman. I didna take ye for a lady of the stables."</p><p>"That's because I'm not. Mr. Macmahon doesn't seem to mind my presence here. As long as I avoid the trotting grounds and stay out of his way if he happens to be on duty while I'm here, he doesn't protest my eating here. I like to think it's a show of gratitude for my treatment of the acute arthritis in his knees."</p><p>Jamie reckoned it had a little more to do with just her medical skills but he knew well enough to keep that to his self.</p><p>He sat down beside her.</p><p>"I asked Mrs. Fitz if she kent where ye take yer meals. She said she didna ken the answer to that. I wasna sure if she were playing me false or no'. But now I see she wasna. For I couldna envision the stables being a place ye'd dine in."</p><p>"I don't usually eat in the stables," she explained before he had the chance to ask. "Usually I eat in the surgery. Or in my garden. Or in my bedroom. The stables are another place of refuge from the bustle of the castle, however. The stable boys clear the area to go take their lunch in the great hall and I have the seating area all to myself. I don't have to deal with probing eyes or indelicate gossip."</p><p>"I'm intruding then..." Jamie concluded, cheeks heating up with shame.</p><p>"A welcome intrusion, Jamie." Claire's hand floated onto his shoulder. She may as well have lain a hot poker to his body. "Or did you forget that I asked you along?" her voice lowered with meaning.</p><p>Jamie tried to keep his breathing steady.</p><p>"I dinna let everyone call me Jamie, ye ken?" he blurted.</p><p>"Oh...I didn't know that. No one calls me Claire here. Except for you."</p><p>"Then it's an honor, Claire Beauchamp," Jamie promised.</p><p>"Likewise, Jamie Fraser," her lips turned up.</p><p>She began to peruse through her basket.</p><p>"I've brought us sausage and boiled eggs and a toasted half loaf and a small jar of jam I bought from one of the villages. I told Mrs. Fitz the eggs were for a patient, but in truth," Claire became sheepish, "I was simply tired of bread and cheese all the bloody time. I know resources are approaching their limits but, one will go mad from the mundanities of it all."</p><p>Jamie couldn't disagree with that. He was accustomed to the varieties at his expense at Lallybroch. He'd forgotten that he accounted for food options being limited in the middle of an agricultural crisis.</p><p>"Colum told me ye kent a fair amount about tending to the land. How much<em> do</em> ye ken, Sassenach?"</p><p>"Well," she chuckled and attempted to push a dark errant curl back over her head but it sprung back into its prior position in stubbornness, "Jamie, I'm not an agriculturalist. I'm a horticulturalist. I study plants. Flowers. Herbs. Not oats and beans. Colum can't tell the difference between the two. As far as he's concerned it's all the same earthy business."</p><p>"Horticulturalist and no' agriculturalist ye may be, but ye've a keen mind. A verra sharp one. If ye can wield a wee scalpel like a Highlander wields a Sgian Dubh then ye can be as good a farmer as ye are a healer."</p><p>She straightened her back, a flower soaking in the light of his words. "Aye," she made a play on the Scottish lexicon.</p><p>They were docked beneath a straw roof supported on wood columns. The sides were open, exposing them to the sunlight, but there were horses anchored at every corner, making their closely situated figures imperceptible to the less sharp eyed onlookers that may be. Other than their equestrian neighbors, the stable area was thankfully vacant.</p><p>Even in the faint shadows drifting above them, Claire's skin was as though she was awash in milk.</p><p>Each time she looked up at him while they ate, Jamie counted another small freckle hiding amongst the others on the bridge of her nose.</p><p>Her eyes were caught between dark lashes and they reminded him of blue geodes unearthed from the cavities of sediment and made into agate slices. The outer rims of her eyes were dark navy and the middle was as clear as the ocean on a windless day. Not a single spoke or fleck in its midst. A sea un-sailed.</p><p>When their fingers touched as they reached for bread at the same time, well, he couldn't ascertain what it particularly had felt like. But it made his ears hotter than a fire hook and lit the fuse at every nerve ending in his body. They both laughed apologetically.</p><p>Jamie was utterly unprepared. For it. For her. For what she birthed inside of him.</p><p>He'd had many affections before. But he'd never known an affection like this. It was the untold itself.</p><p>The compass needle inside of his heart had been stilled and unbidden. Now it jumped, spinning in what ever direction Claire was in. He was drawn to her. Yes, that was the meaning of it.</p><p>His words seemed to spill like maple through a spigot when she was within reach.</p><p>Had he gone mad with affection? Was this what all women and men experienced once their heart was truly set upon another? <em>Ah dhia.</em></p><p>Claire's voice was light with inquisition. "Have you always been a farmboy, Jamie?"</p><p>"Aye. I was raised on tending the land ever since I could walk. I remember helping my Mam wi' the harvest when I was verra wee. My arms barely stretched a foot past my body but I was determined. I once carried a basket the same size as meself full of berries that my Da planted right to the steps at Lallybroch. Only problem was by the time I got there, the basket was empty from all the times I tripped over on the way."</p><p>Claire released a melody of giggles and Jamie nodded as he became filled with mirth.</p><p>"My Da was sae sore about it. But my Mam simply knelt down asides me and said, 'Come, Sawny'- tis my middle name in Gaelic that my brother gave me- 'Gather the wee berries op afore yer father's heart bursts. We sold off the berries we salvaged, and the rest my Mam cleaned off and made into a pie."</p><p>"It sounds quite nice having one's own farm to tend to," Claire said.</p><p>"Wasna just farming that I was brought up on, though. My Da taught me the ways of breaking horses, carpentry, and engineering. All work trades significant to Clan Fraser. I could operate a mill all on my own by the time I was ten years old. My Mam used to say I did verra good and that I was the brawest lad from Broch Tuarach all the way to Broch Mordha. When she spoke it in Gaelic, she spoke it wi' a verra rough brogue. Like a Mackenzie does, my Da would say. And ye ken how a child is, soaking up praise like a rag in a puddle. I loved to do her proud. "</p><p>"Your mother sounds like a delightful woman," Claire smiled.</p><p>"She was."</p><p>"Oh..." her beautiful smile fell. "I'm sorry. Jamie, I didn't know."</p><p>"It's alright, Claire," he assured her. "How could ye? She died when I was a wee lad. It doesna hurt like it used to. They're good memories of her that I enjoy sharing wi' those who deserve to ken them. So please, dinna lose yer smile."</p><p>Her eyelashes bat gratefully and her smile returned and it absolutely bewitched Jamie.</p><p>"When ye smile like that- yer smile is verra sweet, Claire," he breathed skittishly.</p><p>The dimple in her chin intensified as her skin stretched into a deeper smile. Her bonny crystal eyes nearly vanished as the skin around them crinkled.</p><p>"You're a flatterer, Jamie."</p><p>"Nay, Claire. I'm a Scot."</p><p>As he licked the sweet contents of jam off his fingers, he noticed Claire's curls swiveling about as she stretched her neck out and inspected the horizon.</p><p>"What is it?" he asked, fastening a grip on his dirk. His muscles tensed as he set his body for a springing motion. His eyes narrowed, tracing the path her cautious gaze traveled.</p><p>"Where's your godfather?" Claire asked after further inspection.</p><p>Jamie released the tension from his body. "Och, I asked him to keep his reasonable distance today."</p><p>"And he agreed?" Claire's mouth made an O shape in disbelief, "It's within my understanding that he shadows you everywhere you go."</p><p>"He does. And if I dinna wish it on a particular day or moment, he keeps his distance. I recalled that ye were off-put by his presence the last time so I thought mebbe, if I were to run into ye today that it would be easier if he werena around."</p><p>Murtagh had felt affronted by the request he'd made. Though Jamie hadn't formed any noteworthy relationships with the residents of Leoch, he was amicable in his interactions. Murtagh took no such care. The man did naught but snarl at everyone. If he were left alone, he would only stew and sour, rather than point a knife at whoever crossed Jamie's way, or make the acquaintance of others. He was an antisocial creature to strangers and hostile in environments he had no desire to reside in. Being temporarily relieved of his duty had given the man nothing else to do except wade through the lagoon of boredom.</p><p>"To clarify, it wasn't his presence that was off-putting. It was the idea that he was trailing us and forming his own reservations about our proximity and myself that I wasn't endeared by," Claire said. He watched her delicate ivory fingers rub anxiously over her skirt. "Ever since my uncle died, there's been unrelenting talk about me. Sometimes even in the privacy of my room I feel that people are watching. Your godfather struck me as yet another adversary to my ongoing restricted comforts at Castle Leoch."</p><p>Jamie lowered his eyes and nodded solemnly.</p><p>"If ye must know," he said, "I dinna speak ill of ye to him. I dinna even tell him the things I ken about ye. Only that ye're a skilled healer and it's Colum's desire for us to work collaboratively."</p><p>Claire looked up at him. "I didn't think you had. But- thank you. It's compensating to know I have favor with you, Jamie. If only there were more Highlanders like you."</p><p>"There are many Highlanders like me, Claire," Jamie picked diffidently at the grass, warmth rising in his cheeks.</p><p>"I don't think so," Claire quietly declared.</p><p><em>I dinna think there's anyone like you either</em>, Jamie thought.</p><p>He allowed her to finish the remainder of the sausage while his fingers swept away the crumbs sprinkled across his kilt. He watched her lips puckering over the meat as her teeth broke into it and the smooth plane of her jaw pedaled as she chewed. She made a low noise of satisfaction as she swallowed the salty succulence.</p><p>Jamie ducked his head abashedly. He had to tear his eyes away from her before he made an ignominious fool of his self.</p><p>Discretely folding his hands over his kilt where he felt his self stirring, he asked her the things he's been wanting to since the moment they met.</p><p>"How does a lady such as yerself end up in the bonny glens of Scotland under the rule of a Highland Chief? I ken the relations between the Scots and the Brits arena exactly what ye'd call peaceful. We seldom cross paths wi' yer people willingly. And ye're a traveler which means ye come from money and status. The way ye talk of life at Leoch, ye talk of it as though ye're being held hostage. I ken the look and temper of a person caged and unhappy."</p><p>Claire brought the leather canteen of whisky that they were sharing between them to her mouth and downed its contents carefully.</p><p>"You've said that before," she said. "When we first met. You told me I was unhappy. Have you no fear that you might have been presumptuous then? Or now?"</p><p>Jamie creased his eyebrows. "I didna have the notion to fear something that was meant wi' earnest, no' malice. Ye've a glass face, Sassenach. And a world of truth in yer eyes that cannae be refuted by the person looking into them."</p><p>She set the canteen down and pressed one hand into the ground, supporting her body as she edged in close to him. He could smell whisky and jam and salted meat on her breath and her curls that had wandered from her ponytail that he had just been admiring from afar now tickled his face as they dangled forward with her motion. Her eyebrows weren't raised. Nor did her mouth take any distinct shape.</p><p>"What do you see in my eyes, Jamie Fraser?"</p><p>Jamie lightly clasped a pendulous curl between his thumb and forefinger and reunited it with the rest of her hair.</p><p>Their gazes did not intimidate each other.</p><p>"Ye've always got it in yer eyes. The moment ye turned on yer heel to scowl at me, I saw it. It's on yer tongue as well. Ye've tasted adventure. Ye've tasted more of the world than most. The bulk of men and women in this part of the earth have never stepped foot beyond Scotland, let alone the Highlands. So it sets ye further apart from the locals. Ye dinna fold wi' em. And ye dinna speak like a regular British woman which tells me ye werena brought up around them. Ye speak wi' an undercurrent of unbridled command. Ye're no' used to being in one place for sae long. Ye've had freedoms that most women dinna. I ken that because it blazes in yer mannerisms. Now ye've been wi' the Mackenzies longer than I have. And yet the things ye feel while being here isna unlike my own. So I ask, how does a woman so free end up confined in service to Clan Mackenzie?"</p><p>Like a cannon spearing through glass, her expressionless gaze shattered.</p><p>She leaned back sharply and for a moment Jamie worried that he may have been too brazen and she might lash him with swears and contempt. Or worse- turn on her heel and leave without the courtesy of an utterance.</p><p>"I'm sorry-" Jamie began.</p><p>"Don't. You speak candidly to me, Jamie. I... I will reciprocate. It's quite the story. So do perk your ears up."</p><p>With a meaningful look, Claire thrust the canteen to Jamie's chest and he aptly drank from it before setting it in his lap.</p><p>"My uncle Quentin Lambert was a renowned and respected archaeologist. He had a prolific career as a researcher, educator, and explorer. In Briton, he was the proud recipient of many accolades. He gained favor with His Majesty the King when his research led him to the discovery of the burial grounds of Roman Emperor Claudius' War General Aulus Plautius. He was buried with scribes that elaborately detailed how they had conquered Briton. For centuries, it eluded many scientists on how the Romans overtook the land and people. So much of history had been discarded or scattered, and after the Continental Wars, the country had lost hope of every learning about their predecessors and how they reformed and shaped Briton to the empire that it is today. This discovery was a moment of staggering pride for the Britons. Unlike other populaces, they look up to their conquerors and desire to emulate them. The Romans are an ancient nation that is almost sacrosanct to the Brits."</p><p>"I suppose it's akin to how Highlanders perceive Vikings," Jamie murmured.</p><p>Claire nodded concordantly. "In a manner, I suppose so. My uncle became quite famous as a result of all of this and was able to meet the first three benchmarks for a Pass Through Port. He had the credits, of course. He was someone of a dignified profession and he had connection to nobility thanks to the impression he made with the King of Briton. Then just as he received his medal and paperwork, he was saddled with me... I was five years old when my parents were both killed in an accident. My uncle was my only living relative as far as the authorities knew. He was my mother's brother."</p><p>Jamie swallowed the weight of her words. He had not thought that she was an orphan. She spoke detachedly about it as though her parents' lives didn't seem real to her.</p><p>"Did he raise ye with love?" he asked her gently.</p><p>A pleasant expression passed over her features like the shadows of clouds over heathers.</p><p>"Yes. Very much so. I don't...I don't think he was very close with my mother. I don't remember him being mournful. I only remember that he never rejected me when he could have. He accepted me, he embraced me, and he did his best to instill qualities in me that ensured my ability to protect myself as a woman in an unrelenting man's world. Under his guardianship I was allowed to travel with him. I followed my uncle throughout his career. I think in the hopes that a young child wouldn't stifle him, he allowed me to partake and assist him on his ventures and projects. And when I wasn't helping him with his work, he allowed me to cultivate my own interests in herbs and medicine and supported proper education for my studies in medicine and healing. He never excluded me or made me feel like the burden I no doubt was."</p><p>"Ye were a child, Claire. No' a burden."</p><p>"You say it with such surety. How do you know I was a respectable child? I've been told many times that I'm a contemptuous and wretched woman. Those qualities are born from an insolent child." The smile on Claire's face indicated that she'd been jesting.</p><p>"I've my own experiences in the matter," Jamie retorted seriously.</p><p>"You have children?" she said with barely stifled alarm.</p><p>"Och, God- nay, Claire! I didna mean it in that way! I simply meant- ach- forget it," Jamie exclaimed. He flattened his mouth before he became discomposed any further. "As ye were."</p><p>Claire bestowed a brief look of satisfaction upon him.</p><p>"Lamb had both the credits and commissions to live as a true traveler does. To move when they are compelled. My uncle picked Scotland for his latest advent because it was the first passion project that he pursued in years. He wanted to study everything about the Highlands. He had a potent fascination for the Hebrides and Norse influence on the culture and way of life here. He spoke of Viking artifacts and Celtic mythology and stone circles especially. Long before we were on the ship to Port Skye, my uncle had written a letter to your uncle Colum Mackenzie, providing details of his credentials and asking for an invitation to Castle Leoch during his stay here. Incidentally, Colum had heard of Quentin Lambert and honorably granted his wishes. While he was dazzled by my uncle's regales of research and discovery, I impressed him with my own medicinal skills and gained favor with him."</p><p><em>Of course</em>, Jamie thought acidulously.</p><p>"Then-" Claire abruptly paused. Once more her fingers began working over the fabric of her skirts. "Then my uncle suddenly died. Heart failure, I presume. I didn't see the body because it was buried immediately but he smoked tobacco more often than he breathed air so- medically speaking it was inevitable." she added glumly. Her eyes had long broken from his, now carefully occupied with the stitching of the tabby blanket. "Colum had Leoch's lawyer look into my uncle's documents to see what provisions were set in place for me. But I knew before they told me. They hadn't found anything among my uncle's papers. I salvaged one of his spyglasses. Some of his textbooks with his little notes as well. And his favorite scarf. The rest of his belongings had been sent on a ship back to Briton. To be liquidated or memorialized in some museum, I suppose. I'll never get to see it..." her words fell away like leaves dripping from trees.</p><p>"Would the king no' come to retrieve a relative of one of their most prominent researchers as weel?" Jamie was incredulous.</p><p>"I am still here, am I not?" Claire gave a helpless half-smile. "I was not Lamb's child. I can't inherit his credits. There's no proof of whether or not he signed them over to me or, in the case of me having a spouse, my husband. Well, not only am I not married, but I haven't the proper credentials on paper to support my medical experience. No medals proving my significant contributions to society. I never got to settle and open a surgery of my own with all the traveling I've been doing with my uncle. And without Lamb's guardianship, I simply no longer meet the primary benchmarks for a Pass through Port to travel."</p><p>All property and credits could be lost with the ease of forgetfulness. Misplaced paperwork or minute discrepancies in deeds had cost many families and heirs their livelihood and entitlements. It was the reason why Highlanders regarded legacies with maximal importance. These clan lands belonged to thousands of generations of families. Highlander bloodlines were as old as these mountains and seas.</p><p>To lose all of that... Jamie hadn't the faintest clue how her uncle who had undoubtedly been a revered and intelligent man could fail to ensure that the woman he raised had provisions and would be cared for should he suddenly succumb to death. Could it have eluded him in the midst of all that adventure?</p><p>"And since ye came here under Lamb's guardianship and as a guest of Clan Mackenzie, this is where ye have no choice but to remain," Jamie was somberly conclusive.</p><p>A bitter noise escaped the grips of Claire's throat. "Colum won't spare me. He claimed that Leoch was in need of a healer with skills such as my own anyways. Not that it was entirely false. I understand that my capabilities do set me apart. But you know what the man is like. He brims with ulterior intentions. Him and his bloody brother. I am considered of good breeding despite being unable to claim my dear uncle's properties. I still received the education ones of higher stations receive, and my relative was an esteemed favorite of the Crown's. It's not impossible to perceive his reasoning."</p><p>"He sees ye in a prospective light. Wi' no one to claim ye and yerself unable to claim anyone, ye're a diamond afore its taken shape," Jamie said.</p><p>"I'm the perfect little mouse in his trap. And Colum is smart. When the British patrollers do come, he orders men to my surgery to make sure I stay put and don't interfere with their business. I chose, rather than to be paralyzed with grief and powerlessness, to use my entrapment as an opportunity to continue improving my skills and helping people. I'd like to think my uncle would be proud of me for being unremitting and expanding my repertoire. He encouraged that. Everywhere we went, he wanted me to pick up something new from the places we've lived in. He promoted adaptability."</p><p>"So ye-" Jamie began to ask, but a shift in the atmosphere halted him.</p><p>Noise could be heard not far off from where they sat. Jamie's ears picked up the telltale sounds of the friction of boots against grass. The stable lads were returning to their work stations. Lunch had ended.</p><p>"Oh, shit," Claire swore harshly. "The time has gotten away from us! I'm afraid I must be getting back to my surgery."</p><p>Their limbs rushed and tangled as they clamored inelegantly to their feet and gathered the blanket and canteen and stuffed them in Claire's basket.</p><p>Hefty laughter from the joys of full bellies and eagerness to return to labor enclosed on them.</p><p>Some of the horses began to flitter with excitement as they sensed their masters were near.</p><p>"Afore we part, Claire," Jamie said, disquieted by the possibility of not seeing her for the rest of the day today. "Do ye think ye've gained anything by being here in spite of the circumstances?"</p><p>Her gemstone eyes peered upwards into his.</p><p>"Yes. I have. Don't you?"</p><p>"Aye." Jamie answered softly. "I'm sure of it."</p><p>Jamie handed her the basket, lighter now that they had ingested its contents. Their hands touched again and he was certain his heart might burst.</p><p>"Tha thu nad nighean làidir." he said.</p><p>"What does that mean?" Claire asked. They cleared the stables as the workers filled in, Alec MacMahon hobbling behind them and imparting confused looks to the two of them as they crossed each other's ways.</p><p>They walked together in equal stride this time, Claire's face still tilted up at Jamie in pursuit of a response. Once they were beyond earshot, Jamie gave her his answer.</p><p>"It means ye're a verra brave lass."</p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p>"Suppose it'll do," Murtagh made a humph of concession. "Dinna expect it could get much better than this." He folded his hands at his middle, indicating to Jamie that he would not provoke his arrangement with protest. "At least it's a fine day today."</p><p>Jamie nodded evenly with gratitude.</p><p>Fine day it was. A fine day for proper labor and a warm dinner in the Great Hall once the sun retired to the underside of the earth. He and his godfather spent the last two nights awake with the whistling crickets and croaking frogs giving the former Master of Agriculture's documents a thorough going-over. And thorough they had to be. Colum had a young lad deliver a tower of papers tacked in leather pamphlets. The lad had all but feebly lowered the papers in Jamie's quarters, sweat as large as marbles wobbling on his forehead.</p><p>With the accommodations of cider and a crackling fire, they'd put aside miscellaneous details the former master left behind and outlined the egregious errs made against the land and mis managements that needed to be done away with in the altogether. There was capacious need for the introduction of agricultural machinery and mechanics.</p><p>The Mackenzies had unwittingly allowed the state of their lands to reach such a disposition that if his Da himself could see it, it would plunge his heart into the deepest depths of despair. Frasers farmed their land with an enlightened sophistication and respect for the earth that much of the Highlands weren't privy to, much less inclined to. It made Jamie's undertaking even greater than he had primarily estimated. But it had to be done if the people were not going to starve and Clan Mackenzie and Castle Leoch were to survive the next seasons.</p><p>Jamie elected to start on the farmlands established nearest to Leoch. Colum was agreeable and maintained his distance. As stand-in Master of Agriculture, Jamie was free to wield the privileges and duties attached to the position.</p><p>They'd have to re-clear the land and the only way to do that was through the rigorous efforts of weeding, ploughing, and building proper enclosures to keep the livestock away.</p><p>He immediately gathered a collection of men at Colum's recommendation, and a few of his own volition- crofters from the outskirts, unmarried men who lived in the cottages in the midland regions, and some clansmen who dwelt at Leoch. Few of the men Colum recommended were Jamie's relatives on his Mackenzie side.</p><p>He had already met Rupert Mackenzie. He was the tall and plump fellow who Claire had contentious regards towards. He didn't look like the Mackenzies his Da described. His eyes were steel grey and his hair was long, the tinge of russet, and straight. His protruding belly made his Mackenzie tartan fit over him like a pillowcase did a pillow.</p><p>Accompanying him was a short man with a disproportionately large head and missing teeth front teeth named Angus Mhor. Not a Mackenzie, not kin by any means, but a member of Clan Mackenzie nonetheless. Kinship seemed to make no difference to Rupert. The two gave the appearance of being thick as thieves.</p><p>And there was Willie Mackenzie who was a younger lad than he. His hair and eyes were dark like black licorice, reminding Jamie kindly of his father. He had a kind resolve in his eyes complete with a youthful eagerness to work, to explore, and to impress. Jamie reckoned he would be the tamer Mackenzie of the crop, with little to no inclination for trouble.</p><p>Of the kin Colum had enlisted for Jamie's endeavors, he thought with a mischievous surge of gratification, how he looked more Mackenzie than those lot.</p><p>"Aye, it should do, a goistidh," Jamie said.</p><p>From the window docked into the corner several stories above ground at the castle, Jamie felt his uncles watching from the Laird's room. Dougal towered mightily over his brother with a nondescript countenance. Colum's expression was reserved and chary.</p><p>Jamie firmed his posture under the pressures of both fixed stares. He turned to face the party of men who had communed in the courtyard this morning after a breakfast of milk-soaked oats and goat cheese.</p><p>They would have no need of horses. Leoch was a fair but feasible walking distance behind them as they crossed a shallow pond over to the weed stricken regions of land where their work was to begin.</p><p>Jamie gave the order for the men to take with them what ever agricultural tools they were used to using. They took along with them shovels, scythes, plough blades, and large burlap sacks. He and Murtagh brought their own. He hoped to demonstrate later to the men the bountiful benefits of superior equipment.</p><p>Dozens of men huddled closely together and rested their tools against their bodies, looking to Jamie for commandment.</p><p>"Afore we begin, ye'll have been thoroughly briefed on the work we'll be doing for the next months?" Jamie asked.</p><p>Some of the men made non-committal gestures but their body language displayed a concerted understanding amongst them.</p><p>"Will ye be having any questions or concerns then?"</p><p>He asked for the sake of formality but he certainly hoped not. He already spent several hours delivering enumerations of their tasks and goals and hoping to get the men in a working mindset. Though some men's faces revealed the inundation they were faced with, Jamie preferred to have faith that they retained the most important words and that he hadn't just been running his gob for naught.</p><p>Rupert and his slug Angus both moaned derisively in Gaelic about being interwoven with 'lowly crofters' and that they couldn't be expected to work beside them.</p><p>"Cha," Jamie narrowed his eyes at them. "These men are yer brethren in labor. The land doesna discriminate between clansman or crofter. It only shares its riches wi' the deftest of hands."</p><p>From the papers he and Murtagh went over, he knew that Clan Mackenzie, as most clans in the Highlands did, harbored a social system that Clan Fraser did not and in that presented a bias that Jamie didn't possess.</p><p>He comprehended the risk he took by commissioning crofters, but he wasn't daunted by it. There was often prejudice against them, as they were given pitiful meager land plots to oversee. They were known to provide derisory harvests and with so little profit to reinstate, they were the poorest in the lands, only a sneeze above the dumb, the crippled, and the beggars.</p><p>Jamie respected them nevertheless. Crofters were dedicated men who knew what it meant to invest their hope even in the most hopeless situations that were beyond one's wildest manufacturing. They had rudimentary understanding of agriculture which was more than could be said for the men in charge of running the larger and what could be more arable land plots.</p><p>All he cared about above all else was willing and capable workers. Social standings be damned.</p><p>"How old are ye, Fraser ?" Rupert had a gleam of provocation in his eyes.</p><p>Jamie suppressed a displeasured sigh. He would not be goaded by his cousin and his foolhardy idea to stir up discontent.</p><p>"Old enough to ken the ways of the land and to direct men until then ken it well enough on their own."</p><p>"Ye look like ye've hardly sprouted past yer nineteenth summer," Angus snorted, saliva glistening rather revoltingly over his mouth. "We simply dinna ken how tae feel about taking orders from a lad who's still wet behind the ears."</p><p>The two men giggled among each other, impressed with their assessment of each other's cleverness.</p><p>"If ye'll be finding it so much of a challenge to have respect for Himself's nephew then ye can take those concerns to him," Jamie said, tapping his finger upon his belt. He was not above using his direct relation to their Chief to quell conflict.</p><p>Angus' face contorted as he took offense to his words, knowing he had overstepped his bounds and there was nothing he could do about that. No one would strike Colum Mackenzie's nephew and appointed Master of Agriculture. Little respect as they appeared to have for him.</p><p>"Nay a challenge. No need to get yer danders op, Fraser," Rupert stepped in, "Aye, Angus?" he pressed his pudgy hand upon the small man's shoulder. The two men receded back into the huddle.</p><p>"Then let us get wi' it, shall we?"</p><p>The hours drifted like clouds morosely gathering in the skies for a storm. A storm they did make as they began clearing the nasty weeds away. It wasn't an easy task by any means. Some men preferred to cut away with their dirks and pull them up with their hands rather than with the weeding rakes Jamie and Murtagh were using.</p><p>"Ox-heided," Murtagh mumbled as he watched them swatting gracelessly and to little avail. He shouted a few times about the men needing to straighten their backs or else they would end up tiring sooner than expected.</p><p>Jamie had cleared many a stubborn surge of weeds on his own turf. There was plentiful arable land to manage around Broch Tuarach. One of the most immediate things he learned about weeding from the time he was a fairly young lad was that it wasn't as simple as unraveling an errant thread from a tapestry. Weeds had a complicated system of their own. They were devious and if they couldn't be repurposed for some other need, they best be disposed of promptly.</p><p>The overgrown devils created raggedy large stiff shrubs with ends that split into multiples. These interlopers were ever growing and resprouted as soon as they were hollowed from the earth. With land this mismanaged, it would take a lot of soil retraining before it approached the stages of manageability.</p><p>"Dinna forget, when ye pull the weeds up, give it a good jook otherwise ye may give it a greater chance to grow back," Jamie admonished the men. He ferreted around with his toil, quaking the eroded soil open as he sought out the root systems below and stuffed the excavated plants into his burlap sack.</p><p>The large sacks began to fatten with scraggly taproots and Jamie ordered four clansman to take them down to the fire pit at Leoch where disposed items were to be pulverized and incinerated.</p><p>"Can we no' use it for hay? Will we no' be using it for the livestock?" one of the workers by the name of Horace, a man slightly older than Jamie with a ring of golden-white hair around his head asked.</p><p>"Nay, they'll latch on to new growth and stifle the land all over again. We must interrupt the process wholly. So take good care and chuck 'em to the fire. Dinna drop anything."</p><p>The men disappeared over the slope of the valley back towards Leoch and they were rewarded for their ascents and descents with a swig of Jamie's whisky.</p><p>The efforts were familiar to Jamie's body and he began to feel relaxed and soothed by the rigor of the rhythm. He felt a humming sensation in his chest and thoughts of his family back home graced his mind while his arms worked into the soil. The other men chattered lightly, some griped sourly, but the air was overtaken by chirping tits and sparrows, scrapes of wind in the empty skies, grunts of labor, and the dull sound of steel breaking dirt.</p><p>They had arisen before most of the people in the castle to use time to its most maximal means for the day. Jamie was not displeased by their display of stamina. Clan Mackenzie's men were bred for battle since birth. A body forged for combat against man was different than one forged for combat against land. For the first day of work, many of the men were holding their own despite the foreignness of application.</p><p>Rupert's round figure and Angus' stout figure were not too far from his eyes' reach and Willie worked without a single murmur of complaint. Jamie took notice of the lad rubbing his spine and grimacing more times than he would like.</p><p>"Och, Willie, give yerself a break. I dinna want ye breaking yer back on yer first day of work, eh?"</p><p>The lad lifted his head to Jamie, streaks of dark hair pasted to his face with perspiration and dirt marks from where he no doubt rubbed his forehead.</p><p>"Aye, James, sir. Thank ye." he put his tool down and sat squarely on his arse.</p><p>"That goes for the rest of ye. Pace yerselves. 'Twil be a verra long day."</p><p>It was a several long days of acre-clearings. They drifted out and for lengthy hours they devoted their selves to laboring and scouring dead plants, displacing mossy rocks and boulders, and wrenching roots from the soil like a razor gliding over a stubbled jaw.</p><p>It was admittedly a different form of challenge dealing with Mackenzie lands. The quality of the terrain was as tough as bull leather and some of the soil was rougher than the hide of an alligator. Some of the land would not recover. It simply was not a possibility.</p><p>Jamie's assemblage may have made a fine impression at the start but by the second week, their rapport began shifting.</p><p>Some of the men took longer breaks in between than others. The more persistent of the workers were the crofters, as Jamie had been relying on, and he marked them in his ledger under his proposal for a bonus recompense from the Clan Chief once the land turned back over in the future.</p><p>The workers spent significant portions of their time moaning and fashing about blisters bubbling on their hands and on their feet and about their aching appendages. They were in constant need of refreshments whether that meant a trip to distillery or to the creek. It was all but falling apart as the days lingered.</p><p>Jamie's jeers about them being poor excuses for Highlanders made marginal difference in their disposition. They simply were not farmers. They were not Clan Fraser. These were tedious matters to them and above all, they wanted to return home an to their prior daily occupations.</p><p>Many of the evenings began to be filled with greetings at the castle when the clansmen returned from their labors. And there was always Mrs. Fitz and her granddaughter Laoghaire urging them to the kitchen and reminding them to have their filthy linens ready for washing. She stocked everyone's bellies with hog and salmon and since the cattle were producing very little milk during this time, wine and ale sufficed for most nights.</p><p>Despite the meals and well resting, in the early mornings the men griped and clamored together to resume their necessary labors. Jamie could stand it. Complaining always stops at some eventuality. Jamie felt more pressure to earn the men's respect than anything else.</p><p>Many of the clansmen hadn't reproached Jamie, but it was permeably evident that they hadn't accepted him there either. Being the Laird's nephew could only garner but so much respectable regard on its own merit. He was still a Fraser, a man none of them have been acquainted with before. And he had thrust upon them a new line of duty that they had little desire to habituate their selves to.</p><p>Mere obligation wasn't enough to perform this work efficiently. Clan Mackenzie hadn't done trade dealings with Clan Fraser in decades. These men never had the chance to know the splendidness of their agricultural system, nor the exquisite richness of their crops.</p><p>Though Jamie did not hold the title of Master of Agriculture at Lallybroch, he recognized that a fair deal of duties were similar to what he had already been carrying out as Laird Broch Tuarach's successor. He overlooked the ledgers for the tacksmen, farmers, and other laborers. He organized the budgeting plans and which surplus crops were to be set aside for emergency storage. He predicted the strengths of the harvest and the profit that would be rendered in advance. He partook in the rather political business of trading and sales.</p><p>Because of his thorough experience he was also faced with the urgent recognition that ploughing and seeding would take them far longer than clearing land at all. And he would soon have to begin allocating the budget to purchasing multitudes of seeds. Not only did they need to get the livestock properly fed as soon as possible but they would also need enough crops left over in the next harvesting season to give to the Brits once they inevitably returned to Castle Leoch to take more than they were entitled to.</p><p>Feasible alternatives needed to be employed at the nearest opportunity.</p><p>Agricultural life was one patience and probability. He felt the men would not become invested in their hearts until the fruits of their labor ripened. He needed harmony among the men and their trust. Both would take a time to come.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Claire began to come by with salves and linens and oils and stitches to tend to the men. She never rode on horse, which Jamie found to be cause for concern.</p><p>The further ground they worked over, the longer their commutes to and from Leoch became. God had surely vested her with the spirit of a wild creature. She came always on foot with her leather roll tucked into the crook of her milk-white arms and bearing no signs of breathlessness. It was enthralling how she spread her tools upon her apron and with a sternness that Jamie found to be hypnotic, eased the men's ails with her medicines.</p><p>Her touch was graceful and controlled. Her neck remained poised while she dabbed and wrapped and nursed. Each word she spoke dripped with fierceness and command.</p><p>Few of the men- namely Angus- refused her assistance. Prideful fools. A woman's touch was a bonny thing to come to know.</p><p><em>Claire's</em> touch was an imprint of privilege.</p><p>He had jealous thoughts. He didn't fall to injury at the frequency the other men did. His body was already molded and melded for this sort of labor. The callouses on his hands from lifelong labor protected them from bleeding. He didn't end up with sore backs and cramping thighs. He wasn't prone to exhaustion.</p><p>Her attentions were upon the men and her healing work and not upon him. And he wished sorely that he had developed an injury worth her time and touch. There were no better excuses he could devise to stop his work and whisk her away, to enjoy her company in privacy. He thought with a brutish possessiveness that she ought to be his alone to behold. She and her unique touch.</p><p>Jamie wondered if the world around him felt as still as he did when she was near. Perhaps the clouds ceased their listless drifting and the sun had focused her like light beaming through glass. He felt he could see nature's particles palpitating about her like a halo as though she were their chosen angel.</p><p>Claire was like the faeries born in duns his mam would speak to he and his siblings of when they were bairns. A wise woman with skin of milk, eyes of knowledge crystallized in azure, and a voice with the viscosity of honey and density of steel and sometimes- only sometimes- with the tart delicacy of porcelain.</p><p>When she came today. she wore a homespun dress of creamy lavender and her dark brown boots peaked out beneath the rim of her skirt. Her undershirt was of another cream color and they were decorated with pretty ruffles that lined the slope of her breasts, tucked protectively beneath her dress.</p><p>She maneuvered between the workers who passed her along when she asked which ones needed tending to. Gradually, she came upon Jamie with a smile more luminous than any lamp or torch man could light. As he was stabbing his rake into the earth, she cocked her head with explanation.</p><p>"I have Mrs. Fitz at the castle doing the tending while I'm here. I thought, well it makes little sense having the men commute all the way there when I can simply be here to help on sight more often. Welcomed or not," she daggered a glare towards Angus before reconnecting with Jamie. "And are you well, James Fraser?"</p><p>In her eyes were unspoken litanies that Jamie was certain his eyes requited.</p><p>Claire or Mistress Beauchamp? He hadn't yet navigated whether it was impertinent to refer to Claire by her Christian name before these men who all referred to her as Mistress Beauchamp. His father didn't like to be addressed as 'Da' when they were in the twines of Laird affairs. It was always 'Father' or 'Laird Broch Tuarach' before the other men. Perhaps Claire had similar preferences. Or perhaps she wouldn't care what he called her. 'Claire' might be too forward before these men while 'Mistress' felt overbearingly ceremonious, far too taciturn for what it was between them. It felt as though they were pretending. Were they?</p><p>"Aye, Sassenach, " Jamie answered decidedly, "I'm well. How might I assist ye?"</p><p>"I wish to speak with you. Elsewhere, that is."</p><p>Jamie ordered the men to continue about their business and he laid his tools upon the ground all but hurriedly. He followed her a modest distance away from the workers.</p><p>"Claire," Jamie whispered her name with the gusto of a man quenching his thirst from a cool stream. "Lass, why do ye walk hours' lengths here? Can ye no' ride horse?"</p><p>She gave him a look of surprise, not expecting him to lead with that inquiry.</p><p>"Oh I can ride a horse perfectly, Jamie. I just haven't a horse at all," Claire answered, her words descending into a salted murmur. "Colum forbade it to assure I can't take off as I might please. God knows I wouldn't get very far if I did try to escape Mackenzie lands. I wouldn't know where the hell I'm going and no one would have sympathy for a Sassenach woman to hide me."</p><p>"Claire, I'm-"</p><p>"Not to worry, Jamie. I've two functioning legs at the least which is more than Colum can say for his goddamned self." She rolled her lips over each other and her pearlescent skin hued with crimson. "That was hideously crass of me. I'm so embarrassed." She raised a hand to her cheek as if to cool her flush away.</p><p>Jamie hoped he never became accustomed to this woman's honesty and razor tongue.</p><p>"Remind me to never get on yer bad side. Sassenach," he laughed inwardly. "I'm afeared."</p><p>"Oh, are you, Jamie? What if I were to tell you of a way you can guarantee the continuation of your good favor with me?"</p><p>"Then I would make haste in such endeavors."</p><p>Her eyes danced with mirth and Jamie reveled in the knowledge that he was the cause for her delight.</p><p>"It's what I wanted to talk with you about, actually. I wish to help with the work. I wish to be out here in the fields and doing my part."</p><p>Jamie's eyebrows creased. "Ye are doing yer part. Ye're doing yer healing and keeping the men working."</p><p>"But I want to do <em>more</em>," Claire insisted. "Your uncle did say he would like for us to work together. I've special privileges for the time being and I intend to utilize them to their most maximal points."</p><p>Jamie cut his sigh in half. It wasn't that he was opposed to her working the land with him. At Clan Fraser, the women worked the fields just as much as the men did. He had no beliefs in whether field work was a man or woman's duties. Claire was of gentle birth, however. Her life was different from a Highlander woman's. He couldn't imagine her marble skin and pastel clothes creased and caked with dirt like everyone else.</p><p>"It's no' simple work, Claire."</p><p>Her dark but lightly haired eyebrows lowered and her berry lips tensed.</p><p>"I've slept for weeks at a time in catacombs with nothing but the shawl I wore around my shoulders and journal for documenting as my pillow, I think I can survive some farm work, Jamie."</p><p>He swallowed and nodded promptly, realizing that acquiescence was the wiser option to trying to stop her from doing what she wanted.</p><p>"Ye'll work close asides me at the least. I think that would be best."</p><p>"As do I, Jamie," Claire grinned satisfactorily. "I may need guidance with other tasks but I know a great deal about weeding and mulching so you don't have to exhaust any overt attention on me."</p><p>"Nay, but I like having ye near, ken?"</p><p>Together they returned without further qualms to the site of activity and Jamie had Willie fetch one of his extra tools and placed them in Claire's hands.</p><p>Jamie couldn't commit his focus to anything but her. With a trained sureness, his hands worked into the earth, partitioning and uprooting, but he felt both his body and mind pulled in her direction.</p><p>She was near, but she felt nearer. And they were both working in silence, save for the small sounds she emitted as she cut into eroded terrain. Over time her clothes began dirtying. Her chest swelled often with the intense breaths she took. Her lips were rubied from how she gnawed on them with concentrated effort. Her raven curls remained within their confines until she banged her trowel up against a hidden boulder. They sprung out at the same moment she hissed "bleeding hell, blasted rock" under her breath.</p><p>She was a spectacularly exploding mess.</p><p>"Ye're watching the Sassenach lass," Murtagh came beside Jamie, nearly startling the kilt right off of him.</p><p>Ifrinn. He'd forgotten his godfather was close. The man had an uncanny gift for moving as soundlessly as a large maple leaf detaching from its tree after its final moment of life.</p><p>"Aye," Jamie said, smoothing his expression, "She's the only woman here among a field of griping tired workers and I am to see after her welfare."</p><p>"Is she yers to see after?" his godfather asked, though it presented itself manifestly as a statement.</p><p>Jamie's eyes darted about as he searched his own thoughts.</p><p>She wasn't his. And the thought of it assaulted him with an acute bluntness. He wanted her to be his.</p><p>She captured him singularly and wholly. She breathed life into the carcass that had been his soul. Christ, even when they touched, he felt his blood thrumming. His father once told him when he was a lad of fourteen years that he would know the right woman before him even knowing her first. It would encompass him without reason or question. It would be as instant as breathing. And it was.</p><p>Was she his to see after? And above all else, did she know that he belonged ineffably to her?</p><p>Jamie fastened his grip on his tools and turned his back both to his godfather and to Claire.</p><p>He knew the answer to both questions.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Claire found Jamie's eyes engaged on her as though he were a large cat.</p><p>His cinnamon lashes swept up and down as his eyes roamed about. She suppressed a shiver as his fingers, large like the bodies of a sycamore, took purchase of hers in a warm vise. They were fascinatingly enormous ligaments. Strong by the look of them, just like the rest of his constitution, and skin calloused where they had tightened around tools of labor and bearing things of great weight for many hours of each day. But they were warm and gentle as though her hands were a newborn babe. It was constrained strength and Claire wondered rather lubriciously the other ways he used his hands and the varying pressures acquainted with such usages.</p><p>In the wild, when two cats locked eyes, it was the mark of aggression and challenge. Their eyes commanded their depth of dominance and they were always on the quest to assert it. The first of the combatants to bow their head or cast their eyes in a different direction had to submit to their opponent and relinquish any hope of prepotency for the time being.</p><p>Claire supposed that were she in the wild at this very moment, she would be subjugated by Jamie. Her eyes could never hold the steadiness of his looks for too long. She confessed to herself that she wouldn't be opposed to the condition. She had come to regard Jamie's aura of dominance as a rather steadying force than a menacing one.</p><p>He was very much as large and stately as a lion with his size and his red mane but his gestures were more akin to a domesticated cat. He was a perfect representation of two spectrums of the feline species.</p><p>Her reaction, well, it was encouraged by the fact that she had no option other than to embrace her gestating feelings for the man. And her ever burning attraction for him.</p><p>He spoke with a calm elaboration and she was enchanted.</p><p>"So it's verra simple. Like a wind-up toy, ye ken? The wee mousy things? It's no' different from that," Jamie said.</p><p>They were more or less lounging in her surgery where Claire was hopeful that no one would need tending to for the time being. They sat at one of the creaking worn benches, nursing two cups of bitter ale and in the space between their cups was a large paper Jamie had spread out with complex illustrations of a diagram for an advanced plough system that he had hand-drawn. Somewhere along his stream of explanation, she had touched one of the dark lines across the paper and he took her hand and smoothly guided it along.</p><p>"I can't believe you've designed this all on your own. You're a genius, Jamie."</p><p>"Och, no' all on my own. Clan Fraser has been innovating ploughs for generations. This one takes after my great-grandfather's design. I simply made a couple of additions, wee bobs here and there. The blades, for example. Here, at the moldboards, ye see? The curvature helps to cut deeper into the soil and turn over fresh turf just as quick. And the gears will do most of the work as weel. It creates a more accurate cut as opposed to the older mule and plough unit and hoes I ken the crofters rely on. Their moldboards are verra dull and the chisel is at the wrong angle."</p><p>Jamie wasn't just a farmer and horse tamer. He was a capable engineer as well. Claire hadn't gotten the chance to sojourn too long among the socialites in the Lowlands but when she had gone into the lower districts of Scotland to make medicinal purchases with the permission of Colum, she recognized that it was a very industrialist district lined with imposing structures and more posh and proper inhabitants rather than rugged Viking clansmen and clanswomen.</p><p>'Lowlanders' she came to understand they were called, had ample use for men like Jamie. He was well groomed, well educated, well spoken despite his Scottish brogue, came from affluence, and his ingenuity would have landed him in high social favor among those people.</p><p>But a Highlander had no true place among Lowlanders. It was the most prominent thing that segregated Jamie from the aristocratic hives of men Claire had taken stock of. Jamie had something those men did not.</p><p>She'd never known someone so clearly made for something as Jamie was. To lead, to cultivate. He was next in succession of his father in Lairdship. A title awaited him. As did governance over the clan he belonged to, and would eventually belong to him, and its ancestral lands.</p><p>He was as made for this life as she was for hers. To be a lover of herbs and medicine was unique to the fabric of her life, her world. It patterned every step she took. She knew without the two, she would simply unravel like a plait after it lost its ribbon.</p><p>She looked down once more at their joined hands and flexed the muscles in her fingers experimentally to see what he would do. He made no such move, exposing his willingness to relent to her. She could extricate her hand from his if it was what she wished.</p><p>Claire's eyes rose carefully to Jamie's and she smiled with tenderness and appreciation.</p><p>Working side by side with Jamie over the stream of days had brought a new enjoyment to her time at Leoch. It gave her more to do than keep her nose in Leoch's libraries or tend to patients and the needs of Colum and his wife and child. Her schedule stretched flexibly to accommodate Jamie's. She rose earlier in the day before sun up and joined the huddles of men in the kitchen for butter, bread, oats, and half filled mugs of milk.</p><p>Some of the men murmured their disagreements with the presence of the 'Sassenach healer' among them when she first reported for duty, for what good could she do out in the fields? Pigheaded as they were, Jamie shushed them with a warning glare of azure and a set of his jaw and declared her to be 'a canny lass', and should any accidents befall them, they would be in need of her healing.</p><p>She didn't know how much of his statement sprouted from pragmatism and how much sprouted from him savoring her company. In either instance, she was grateful.</p><p>She got to be beside Jamie, though it came at the cost of his godfather Murtagh's glower of suspicion scorching the skin on the back of her neck.</p><p>She loved the work she got to do and the feeling of her body being unfamiliar with the tasks, surely but slowly adapting to a more manual life. It brought her back to her days with her dear uncle Lamb and those hours of walking in damp caves with rattling equipment and unearthing of fossils under the beaming sun until her skin flushed and burned and her joints tired.</p><p>Jamie gave her tools of her own to work with. Her garden equipment was no match for the brutal soil that they were breaking into like prisoners sentenced to labor in a quarry. They weeded acres of land and when they weren't doing that, they made mulch piles out of shredded tree bark and grass clippings and leaves and spread them over the land as Jamie directed. And while the men chopped wood to build large enclosures for the cows, goats, and sheep, Claire eagerly assisted with binding them together using rope and using a mallet to beat the tacks into the rough terrain until they were firmly planted.</p><p>Jamie was a natural born leader. She would see him, a broad figure cutting into the landscape, rise up to his full height with his kilt swaying as he shouted orders firmly in Gaelic at the men. He navigated men like a captain commandeers a ship. The men didn't appear to reproach him in full, but Highlander clansmen were prideful people and men of Clan Mackenzie taking orders from a man of Clan Fraser surely seeded defiant thoughts. They appeared to be thoughts and seldom more nevertheless.</p><p>Sometimes in the middle of the work day and other times deeper into the evening back in her surgery, she made tinctures and tonics and brewed teas and warm compresses for the moaning and the groaning workers.</p><p>Had she not known any better of the man, she would've thought Jamie was making fodder of Clan Mackenzie. She didn't know what life was like at Clan Fraser but based on how often the men complained of sore muscles and cramps, they wouldn't last a week there under agricultural labor.</p><p>When the others returned to the castle to take their meals later in the day, Jamie asked her to stay behind with him, professing that he already had a meal accompanied with libations put aside for them by his godfather. They relished in their conversation and laughter while lapping up their foods in the freedom of an open field. To any onlooker, Claire knew they would appear to be lovers, enraptured by the unadulterated joy of each other's company.</p><p>The ease in which they could speak to each other and be near each other made her feel as though her stomach was warm golden honey. She had not had that with another person until Jamie Fraser came to Leoch. It was so innate that it nearly mortified her.</p><p>Surely he felt it too, for he let out a terse breath and his hand relieved hers and he stood up and went into his bag, fishing out more papers.</p><p>The bench groaned under Jamie's iron weight as he sat back down. "And there's these as weel."</p><p>"What are these?"</p><p>"They're prints for seeding drills and mechanical reapers similar to the ones that we use at Lallybroch. We have more complicated designs but I dinna want to scare the men away from the look of them. 'Twil be challenging enough as it is to convince them that engineering isna a sin and that it's god's wish for man to use the muscles and brains he's given us to our benefit."</p><p>Claire studied the strokes of ink up close and marveled at Jamie's display of knowledge.</p><p>"I don't quite understand the aversion to advancement here in the Highlands," she sighed. "This way of life is considered to be unenlightened and barbaric in other parts of the world, you know."</p><p>"I ken...I've been called a Scottish Barbarian and many a Frenchman and a Brit," Jamie sported a crooked smile. One half charmed, half stern. "It's why my Da insisted I receive a nobleman's education abroad. His Da, my Grandsire, did the same for him. As did my Great-Grandsire. To ken the world beyond these hills is a gift many Highlanders dinna have. To ken life abroad kelpies and waterhorses and changelings brings about a firmer understanding of life and what we can do wi' the gifts god gave us. It makes ye braver. Stronger. Otherwise what one doesna ken, they fear. And what they fear, they canna control. And what they canna control, they hate. Hatred is the only thing left to hold on to. It keeps one rigid and bound."</p><p>"You've seen the world?" Claire asked, awe flowing into her words. She hadn't known anyone else in the Highlands that ventured overseas through Port Skye and beyond.</p><p>"No' as much as ye have," Jamie answered. She thought she detected a hint of pride in his eyes. "But aye, I have seen some of it. I may no' be a traveler but I ken why we see the sun in the day and the moon in the night. I've tasted mashed tomatoes and I've been in libraries that reached the heavens. I've seen horseless carriages wi' my own eyes and steel furnaces wi' fire ye can manipulate wi' a wee jook. I've even seen women dance on their toes and a sword made of gold wi' a hilt sculpted from vibrant jade."</p><p>Tingles trotted down Claire's vertebrae.</p><p>"When I showed my collection of medicines as I set to treat a patient's infection, Colum had them confiscated because he thought it was witchcraft," she shared, "He had his men rummage through the rest of my medical supplies hoping to find anything else seemingly nefarious and among the likes of deviltry. I was enraged but my dear uncle was in distress at the horror that I might have been taken into one of the townships for tried for being a practitioner of the dark arts. I'm still upset that they tore one of my favorite satchels in the process."</p><p>"That bastard-" Jamie's hands balled up like stones large and firm enough to kill Goliath. "Claire, I do hate to hear, let alone think, of the mistreatment ye've been at the reception of. It isna right to treat a guest of yer clan so."</p><p>"You should have seen their faces when they procured my syringe needles. Though I insisted that needles are no different from a sword or dirk, really-" Claire's words dissipated as she saw Jamie's face set hard as granite and his pupils dilate like an open inkwell spread upon parchment. She stilled and clamped her mouth.</p><p>"Needles?' Jamie's voice dropped to a gravelly rasp.</p><p>"You do know what needles are, right?" Claire asked slowly.</p><p>"Aye," the bones in Jamie's jaw ground because thick with tension and he pressed a hand to his forearm. His large fingers rubbed a ghostly rhythm over the material of his white shirt. "I dinna like them."</p><p>He did not proffer any words beyond that. He only continued to look troubled. She dealt with many fratchety men, women, and children, at the sight of a needle and even worse at the prospect of one. She grew to expect protests and occasional fainting.</p><p>But Jamie's reaction to the word alone elicited a shower of goosebumps over her skin. It caused her own heart rate to escalate and a sting of fright twinged the underside of her chest. Best she alter the mood for both their sakes.</p><p>"Do you ever resent it? The way things are in the Highlands?"</p><p>A grateful smile chiseled and buffed away the stony terror that previously inhabited his features.</p><p>"Nay," he said. "I'm proud of who I am and of the land my bones have sprouted from. There are parts of our belief system that are ingrained so deeply within us that to part wi' it would mean to part wi' what we ken to be ourselves. I canna fault the people for wanting to abide by the only way of life they've ever kent. We've a right to our culture same as anyone else."</p><p>Claire smiled regretfully at the reminder that she was foreign to that feeling of placement. Jamie had seen enough of the world to accept that he was content with his home. A forlorn tenor came upon her with the idea that she may remain a stranger to such a thing until her life was complete.</p><p>"As history would have it, after the Continental War, wi' the Union of Eurasian Peacekeepers disbanded, and the restrictions placed on all ports, legislature took a shift and the British monarchy looked upon these islands wi' a different regard. One both prosperous and unkind. Highlanders were always a solitary people. Until the new king began dispatching his men here in pursuit to reconstruct and repurpose. Ye take a superstitious people and tell them abandon yer ways, embrace yer foreign superiors, and if ye dinna, ye'll be punished for it in one way or another. So they call us Scots barbarians. They say we're animals wi' no order or system. Ye see how it breeds distrust and stubbornness? All newfangled ideas become something suspicious because of a precedence of mistreatment. Ye're familiar wi' the feeling. Did ye no' call me another 'superstitious Scot' when first we met?"</p><p>"Wh-" Claire crimsoned. "Bleeding Christ, you heard that?"</p><p>"Aye. I did. And I'm grateful that while it was a first impression, it wasna a lasting one."</p><p>"No..." Claire shook her head, feeling wisps of curls dangle against her cheeks. It was hardly a moment's length of an impression.</p><p>Curiosity murmured within her. Her fingers tapped on her knuckles with a need to proclaim her inquiry.</p><p>"What was your first impression of me?"</p><p>She saw something spark in her converser's turquoise eyes but his mouth remained ever shut. His gunpowder thoughts were a mystery to her and she felt mocked by the elusory act. She scooted closer to him on the bench, the fabric of her skirt creating friction against the creaking wood.</p><p>"Well?"</p><p>Jamie's lips quirked and he turned his head from hers as though he were a shy lad.</p><p>"I canna tell ye."</p><p>"Why on earth not? It can't be particularly complicated unless you make it so."</p><p>"I dinna complicate things. I am a simple man, Sassenach."</p><p>"Laird-to-be sounds far from simple," Claire pressed on. She quelled the niggling feeling that perchance his first impression of her hadn't been too kind. She did curse at the man after all. But in her defense, and she would like to believe that she had a mountain of supportive evidence in her case, he had encroached upon her without warning.</p><p>"Aye, it doesna. But whether I'm a farmer or leader of my clan, what I am doesna change who I am. I've...- we speak truthfully wi' one another. I think, more so than a man wi' his righthand at his side dooes. I've no cause to lie to ye. Ever. And while I willna place ye under obligation to reciprocate, I would be grateful if ye do."</p><p>"I do," Claire affirmed without hesitation.</p><p>"There are things I cannae tell ye until the time is right. If I say it when it isna ready to be said, I'm afraid the meaning may be lost. Do ye ken what I'm saying, lass?"</p><p>Jamie Fraser was a very intense man. Claire felt shivers racing across her body like water in a stream. Her heart was crashing in her chest like a ship between two walls of sea.</p><p>"Um, do you often use these mechanisms at Lallybroch?" Claire tried pronouncing the word with as Scottish a brogue as she could and she grimaced at the butchering and shrugged shyly at Jamie.</p><p>"Ye pronounce it like Lallybroch, Claire. No' 'brook'. Ye're sae British."</p><p>Jamie's face leaned closer to hers and she could count every copper spike of hair on his face as it made an educational display with his large eyes and teeth to emphasize his speech.</p><p>Claire felt a giggle bubbling from her belly and bursting through her mouth. Jamie's broad shoulders shook as he succumbed to laughter as well.</p><p>"To answer yer question though, we do more manual labor than anything else. The machines are for when it comes time to repurpose the land and harvest. This parts us from the Lowlanders. They use machines to replace the need for people. Ye see, we Highlanders live longer because we're verra active. We're no' a bunch of pompous slackers dressed in silks and ruffles letting steel and gear do all the business for us."</p><p>"It does look like quite vigorous work," Claire admitted, eyes looking over the illustrations he left out with consideration.</p><p>"Nay, I'm used to it, Sassenach. If ye're worried about straining yer muscles, dinna fash. I intend to be the only one ploughing yer field."</p><p>The loops of red curls that fanned out around his ears exposed that the ends of them were inflamed like a pink lotus.</p><p>Bhuddists believed that lotuses were the marks of divinity and fate. They seeded in murky pools of water and when they blossomed they did so in vibrant sundry hues. They symbolized good fortune and strength. What good fortune Jamie was indeed.</p><p>Upon that instant, she remembered the feeling he gave her earlier when he held her hand. Only this time she imagined it was her usurping him, and what a notion it was. His eyes were glowing in this moment. They had gone from a beautiful turquoise to a sparkling cyan. They blazed against the dank constitution of the surgery, brighter than the moon on a clear night. Christ, her forward thoughts growled, You bloody gorgeous man. I ought to ravage you right here. Right now.</p><p>"Good," Claire breathed at last. "I wouldn't want anyone else toiling in the bushes of my garden. Although if you must know, I have the stamina of a wild horse. My muscles work quite fine."</p><p>Jamie smiled cleverly and his entire frame moved as he let out a grunt. His voice was low and rumbled like a thundercloud in the distance.</p><p>"Then will ye use yer fine muscles to accompany me somewhere, lass?"</p><p>"Where?" Claire answered dazedly. She'd follow him anywhere, she thought quite amorously. Right over the edge of some rolling hill, if he wished it.</p><p>"To speak wi' Colum Mackenzie."</p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Claire felt like an arachnid draping from her long silver lace of silk and eight eyes surveying each surface and crevice in her dominion for every flinch and flicker of movement. Only she wasn't on a surreptitious prowl for some sorry bugger to cloak in web and devour. She was more of an interloper while the two other men in the room chattered and ruminated over the discussion at hand. The further the talk between Jamie and Colum carried on, the farther Claire felt from them.</p><p>Colum hadn't addressed her beyond a peculiar look when Jamie was permitted to cross his threshold and she entered after him, hidden no more behind the broad ark that was his figure.</p><p>She had wondered why she let Jamie bring her to the man. She wondered what in god's name was she thinking, really. As they came closer upon the large iron door that sealed the entrance to the Laird's room the reminder of her contempt for the man gripped her with the raw sharpness of the talons of a hawk. Before she could tell Jamie that she changed her mind and wished to turn back around, the steel hinges groaned as the door opened and they were invited in.</p><p>The chieftain was doting on one of his warblers while he ambled back and forth. His feet were contemplative thuds against the ground and he almost moved as though piles of limestone were planted around the snarled bones of his ankles. Claire supposed that if he were thinking with his feet, they were thoughts that wailed for the pain he was assuredly in. The physician in her yearned to ask him if he was taking willow bark tea and using oil of juniper like she prescribed but he was too entrenched in discussion with Jamie, and with his lilac pelted bird currently perched on his curved index finger, so she thought it impertinent if she breached the moment.</p><p>"And what is wrong wi' the ploughs we use presently?" Colum asked his nephew. "This verra advanced machinery, James."</p><p>Claire remained positioned behind Jamie, nearer to the door. Though her hands were plaited upon her skirts and she kept her countenance modest, she wasn't being demure by any means and she hoped Colum made no such mistake to think that she was in submission to him. She had ill favor towards him and only hoped with her performance that he would continue to not address her. Her only regret at the moment was that she couldn't see Jamie's face. His inflections and body language were all she had to rely on to know what he felt.</p><p>She probably wouldn't have seen anything other than the establishment of an authoritative and placid resolve he appeared to have around those he wasn't too inclined towards.</p><p>Jamie had his blueprints tucked in the sanctuary of his arms and he unrolled each paper, elaborating to the chief what each drawing meant, just as he had done with Claire earlier in her surgery.</p><p>She didn't know what her purpose was for being here, nor did she understand what Jamie's intents were until he made his professions to Colum about the things he needed in order to advance the work at hand. That made sense, of course. He was the Master of Agriculture for the time being, after all.</p><p>She pondered upon the whereabouts of his gruff dark haired godfather Murtagh Fraser, noting she hadn't seen the man near Jamie at all since he came to spend time with her at noon. Working in the fields, perhaps? Going over more land preparation with the men? Doing more herding work?</p><p>"To speak frankly, yer land's tougher than Helian coo's tongue and none so willing to yield to a trowel let alone a dull plough that'll nae doubt collapse under exertion over the hard and stone encrusted terrain. Most of the patches I picked are the safest guarantees for refertilization and tending. The rest of yer land will never see the days of arability ever again. The ploughs yer men use are no' up to the standards I'm used to working with. And I ken what the land needs is Lovat's Plough. Ye nor yer men havenay heard of it but 'tis my great-Grandsire's design and it will cut yer land faster than ye could dream of."</p><p>Claire wondered if Colum caught Jamie's underhanded slight to Clan Mackenzie.</p><p>"It would have better yield... uncle." Jamie added steely.</p><p>Something about that address made Colum's lax arm furl. With an affectation, he took creaking steps to one of his towering birdcages where he unlatched the gated entrance and lowered the warbler into its metal lodgings. The steel griped as it slid shut and the bird seemed pleased to be reunited with its mates.</p><p>The silence and precarious movements reminded Claire of her witnessing of Lamb's negotiations with indigenous populaces in the villages he would petition to gain passages through. Her uncle was an accomplished polylingual and as an archaeologist he relied on his frequenting of indigenous and ancient languages to sway the people his way or swivel them out of dicey happenstances. Jamie was of a similar conscience.</p><p>"We would have to raise capital for the likes of this. And the other machinery I ken ye've come here to suggest," Colum said.</p><p>"Aye. I've considered that in great detail already," Jamie affirmed. "For my Clan, I've managed many deals such as this. I've a simple proposal, a tour through the land to raise credits from yer tenants. Like Quarter Day, ken? 'Twould be the fastest way to cover the costs for the materials needed and payments to the smithys to fulfill the requests to have them fashioned to my liking. My godfather and I will show some of the men how to assemble and make application of them."</p><p>"How great of a cost are ye estimating?" Colum came behind his desk where he stifled a groan as he sat in his chair. It seemed he was willing to entertain the ideas Jamie presented.</p><p>"No estimation. I dinna arrange deals on hypotheticals. I'm no' reckless in such matters," Jamie produced his ledger and took one broad step forward to place the opened page upon Colum's desk and one broad step back to where he stood all along. "Here is a summation of what yer tenants would have to raise. I meself will cover half the credits from my own pockets."</p><p>"Ye're a braw arithmetician just like yer mam."</p><p>Claire froze and her eyes darted to Jamie's figure.</p><p>She fancied herself to be a percipient woman. No matter how outspoken she was, she was never too proud to be silent and gather her surroundings instead. She gathered how Jamie seldom moved with difficulty or clumsiness. He seldom struggled over his words unless she intently tricked him into the stumbling of verbal gracelessness and even so, he possessed the ability to quickly recollect his bearings and respond in like kind.<br/>His control over what passed through his exterior was methodical and borderline enviable.</p><p>Jamie's hands were now folded behind his back and Claire could tell from the way they were tensely creased that he was showing herculean restraint. In fact his entire back had been wound and if she were to pluck him like a string he would undoubtedly snap clean in two.</p><p>She understood now why Jamie had asked her along.</p><p>He wanted her there. Because he couldn't stand his uncle. And he knew she shared his feelings and understood the place his turmoil came from. And it would be easier for him to bear it if she were there with him. Claire felt a surge of desire to take one of his tense hands and squeeze it. It was an urge that did not abate.</p><p>Suddenly Laird Leoch took the moment to acknowledge her.</p><p>"And what do ye make of it, Mistress Beauchamp?"</p><p>"I'm sorry?" her voice was hoarse from lack of use.</p><p>"What do ye make of James' plans? I presume he brought ye along as backup, wi' ye having a traveler's perspective and being knowledgeable in land yerself."</p><p>Claire licked her lips slowly as Jamie, for the first time since they entered the Laird's room, turned to her to meet her eyes. She cleared her throat.</p><p>"I think it's a very good plan. Brilliant. Effiecient. And will bring you the results you're looking for, faster. I also support Mister Fraser's endeavors to raise capital to give Clan Mackenzie a leg up on their farming. It would also assist the repurposing of my herb garden, which I am eager to return to."</p><p>Jamie had a twinkle in the corners of his eyes. He winked before whipping his copper curled head back around and she caught it and felt it shoot through her bones like a flare in the pitch dark.</p><p>"'Twill be quite the feat to convince my tenants to turn their credits into the hands of a Fraser," Colum confessed.</p><p>"Even for the future of Clan Mackenzie?"</p><p>"My people value loyalty above all else, James. Bring my brother along. Yer uncle Dougal is weel favored among the tenants. His presence will be a balm on the people and a great benefit to yer efforts. Ye can have him lead the party. He'll ken which villages to bring ye through."</p><p>"I'd much rather lead the party on my own. I only need a map and a few men-"</p><p>"Ye'll be taking Dougal wi' ye, lad. And that's my final word on it," Colum boomed.</p><p>Jamie's hands strained behind his back again.</p><p>"Aye, my Laird. Thank ye."</p><p>He repossessed his ledger and tucked it under his arm along with his other papers. He faced Claire with an accomplished albeit bitter smile. Claire gave a nod that conveyed that she understood his feelings.</p><p>As they made their way to the door, Colum's graveled voice stopped them in their footsteps.</p><p>"Bring Mistress Beauchamp wi' ye. Ye'll be on the road for a considerable duration of time. Ye may run into difficulty and ye'll need a healer on yer hands."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>LUCEO NON URO. Claire started at those three words etched into the Mackenzie banner in the yellowish brownish compound of mustard. It hung upon the thatched roof of the courtyard stables and she kept her eyes on the banner so that the clatter that environed her didn't consume her. The words scorched their selves onto the surface of her eyeballs while the men went into the stables and reigned their horses out.</p><p>None had inquired after her, of course. Alec Macmahon gave her a half smile of pity as he reminded her that all the horses were spoken for by the clansmen. She didn't understand why Colum permitted her to ride with the men but didn't grant her a horse.</p><p>She awkwardly rocked the small case in her hands full of medical supplies and roll with an indistinct tartan cinched by a leather strap and swallowed bile at the thought of being rucked up against one of the men on their horses for the duration of their journey. She would otherwise be pulsing with glee and excitement at being allowed to go somewhere not only beyond Leoch, but its meadows as well. It had been a considerable time since she tasted any semblance of adventure.</p><p>She was instead reminded unwaveringly that she was an outlander and that no matter the good deeds she had done for Clan Mackenzie, there would under pseudo captivity, never be an opening for her, no place to interweave her presence with theirs.</p><p>She felt humiliated and she burned with it.</p><p>Jamie's godfather came in and gathered his horse as well. He commented something to her, she knew it, but her aural senses dulled and it failed to register on her conscience.</p><p>She felt her chest swelling with frustration and she thought she was rightly fit to burst when she felt a hand of gentle weight press itself upon her shoulder.</p><p>"Sassenach," it was Jamie.</p><p>When eyes tore away from the Mackenzie motto to the settling turquoise eyes of the man who was half Mackenzie his self, she sawa tender smile upon his face.</p><p>As ever, he looked 'braw' as she's heard a Scot say on many an occasion. His sark was scrubbed clean by one of the castle maids and he wore a fine two-toned vest, mahogany over his breasts with silver ornamental buttons and a brown sheep wool tam. His Fraser tartan kilt stopped just short of the cap of his knees and he wore dark boots with stockings. At his sides were a scabbarded broadsword and a dirk. He carried his weapons as all Highlanders did. He looked ready for more than just a credit-collecting expedition.</p><p>She felt enamored by the picture he painted and it did a bit to soothe the bitterness of her mood.</p><p>"They're going to take a headcount in the courtyard. We must get ye mounted," Jamie went on, jutting her from the spell he placed her under.</p><p>Reminded of her predicament, she opened her mouth to protest.</p><p>"But I haven't-"</p><p>His hand usurped hers in one fastening and he led her to the farthest end of the stables where two remaining horses were tied to their posts.</p><p>One was of hulking scale, sheeted in black and beautifully groomed. His skin, tautened over venous muscle, glistened like satin and his equally black hair had a soft wave to it as though it had just slithered out of a plait.</p><p>Jamie began whispering in Gaelic as he rubbed his fingers along the horse's withers and Claire watched with covetousness.</p><p>"This is Donas," he said to her while chanting intently to the horse.</p><p>"Damn, he's bloody enormous." Claire reached out to touch the horse as she saw Jamie did and he hissed warningly at her, causing her arm to stricken and remain raised half mast.</p><p>"Be careful, Sassenach. He can be a volatile beast," Jamie's other hand swept soothing rhythms over Donas' neck. "Aye, he's none so trusting of strangers. When first we met, he nearly clamped his fat yellow teeth over my heid. It took me a verra long time to break him. My Da purchased him from one of Broch Tuarach's neighboring villages after he saw a man being rough and unkind wi' him. He took pity on the rowdy thing and had him brought to Lallybroch. He told me 'Mo mhac, ye've the best damn stablehands I've ever seen. If ye canna break the beast and train him then we'll have to have him shot.'"</p><p>"Why did he need to be shot?" Claire asked, her voice and temperament softening as she lowered her arm cautiously to the horse. "Hardly his fault if he didn't want to be domesticated." She felt Donas' mighty heart beat thrumming beneath his velvet flesh.</p><p>"Weel, he was bred for riding and if he didna break, no one else would purchase an untrained horse wi' his temper. He'd wander his days aimlessly and he couldna survive in the woods wi' the other wild horses. Death would be mercy..." Jamie began mumbling again in Gaelic to the horse. She could see that he loved the horse very much. "We made a connection and I didna want to lose it by giving up on him. He eventually accepted that I'm as much beast as he is and he surrendered his stubbornness."</p><p>"Oh god, Jamie, I'd hardly equate you to a beast," Claire laughed while petting Donas, who showed no aptness to objection. Perhaps he liked her. Or he allowed her to touch him out of recognition of his master's fondness for her. To Claire, it didn't matter whether it was the former or the latter.</p><p>"Donas is fearsome and tempestuous but so long as we trust each other, I'll care for him and he for me. There isna a better bond to have than that." Jamie's eyes were alight with the meaning of his words.</p><p>He lifted his chin to the next horse. It was smaller than Donas and it had a lily white heart on its face and its hair reminded Claire of Jamie's fiery curls, only less resplendent and more uniform in shade.</p><p> "And this is Elspeth. I began working wi' her when she was a filly. She's nothing like Donas. She's cooperative and follows guidance wi' ease. She doesna fash overmuch and is right content wherever I take her. Sometimes I dinna even have to ride her, ye ken? She just follows me wi'out me holding on to her bridle and reins. And she likes people which is a fine quality for a horse to have. She's verra shrewd though. Her kindness is no' to be mistaken for naivety."</p><p>Elspeth's black eyes were canopied by long rows of auburn eyelashes but the gentleness of her temperament shone warmly in them nonetheless. Claire felt a smile of endearment stretch across her features as she rubbed small circles over the horse's snout and raked her nails lightly over her auburn flesh.</p><p>"She's lovely, Jamie."</p><p>"And she's yers."</p><p>"She's really lovely, actually. I've never seen a horse with a heart-" Claire's lips stopped. Her travel case nearly fell out of her arm. "What did you say?"</p><p>Jamie blew air out of his nose and nodded his head while flashing her a slanted smile.</p><p>"Ye told me ye didna have a horse. So I'm giving ye one of mine." He said it as simply as if he were offering a piece of bannock to her in the kitchen.</p><p>"Jamie..." Claire searched his eyes, grasping for any possibility that he was jesting with her. Her throat muscles constricted as she found evidence of nothing but sincerity in them. She looked back at Elspeth and felt the rim of her eyes sear with emotion.</p><p>"She's a truly fine mare," Jamie continued softly. "Gentle and loving. She willna trouble ye at all. I raised her since she was a wee foal and I give ye my word I've trained her weel. She's elegant in stature but she's verra strong. Like yerself, Sassenach."</p><p>"And Colum approves?"</p><p>She hoped he would forgive her striving thoughts of doubt. Good lord, a horse? Her very own horse?</p><p>Jamie made a face.</p><p>"He canna place decree upon my property and what my advents are. But, aye, I ran it by him to thwart a potential stramash should he try to refuse on yer behalf. 'Tis yers now."</p><p>She tried to picture him going against his uncle and lairdship on her behalf and tasted salt on her lips and she traced the wet path up her cheek to her eye with a shaking finger.</p><p>"Jamie, I wonder if I deserve your kindness. Your companionship," she sniffled. "I don't know how to repay you, let alone thank you."</p><p>"Tha thu nas motha na ath-phàigheadh gu leòr, nighean donn," he retorted in Gaelic.</p><p>"What did you say?" Claire asked as she cleared her wet eyes. She found Jamie watching her with an affectionate smile.</p><p>"Nothing," his voice was low enough to be a whisper and, to her astonishment, he wrapped a large arm around her shoulder and pulled her body into the cove of his chest where she smelled honeysuckle, Mrs. Fitz's favorite freshening ingredient for baths, and the sharp scent of pine. The smell of a man swathed in the land.</p><p>She felt swaddled by his touch as though she were a fussing babe, and she couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief even as she mentally castigated herself for weeping in front of the man. Good god, it was little wonder he was so good with horses. His touch tamed her instantaneously.</p><p>"Dinna cry, lass. 'Tis my pleasure. Always. Let's get ye mounted, aye?"</p><p>Too immediately, they were parted, and Jamie's hands began rifling expertly over Elspeth as he adjusted and secured her saddle. He tugged on the cinches to test its snugness. He loosened her stirrups so that they dropped lower and Claire followed his instructions to hitch her medical kit to one of the saddlebags and her other miscellaneous travel items were to be taken to one of the wagons in the courtyard.</p><p>It had been a while since she rode horse but the moment she stuck her feet into the stirrups and lifted her body onto the saddle she felt the sprinkle of nerves she started to have vanish and replace itself with a joy most unadulterated. Elspeth ducked her head and her ears angled low as she stroked the ground with one of her hooves. Claire tautened her grasp on the reins preemptively.</p><p>"Dinnae fash. That means she likes ye verra much," Jamie promised.</p><p>He mounted his 'tempestuous beast' with the ease and grace of routine and clicked his teeth and both Donas and Elspeth jolted forward into a trot.</p><p>At longest last, Claire had a horse of her own at Clan Mackenzie. She bloomed with an effervescent feeling she had been stranger to since before she lost her uncle. She certainly no longer burned. Now she shined with elation.</p><p>She watched the back of Jamie's copper head as her horse trotted behind his, a deep feeling of gratitude towards him clouding in her bosom the entire time.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>did anyone peep me quoting coldplay with a slightly scottish twist in one of jamie's lines to claire? :-)</p><p>please comment your thoughts. ^_^</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Beneath the Rowan Tree</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>in a comment for the previous chapter, someone asked for clarification regarding some of the terminology used so:</p><p>credits = money br<br/>pass through port = passport</p><p>if anyone needs further clarification for anything else please feel free to ask. thank you guys very much for your awesome comments in my last update. i really hope y'all enjoy this next update! :D</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>  </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Ye ought tae be glad ye're kin," Dougal Mackenzie chortled. "Otherwise I'd have ye ride behind me. Master-of-Agriculture is no' fit to ride asides the war chief of Clan Mackenzie. But then ye arena just stand-in for the position, are ye? Ye're Laird-to-be of Broch Tuarach. Almost evenly ranked wi' my brother," he held the double row of leather horse reins in one hand and the other hand was resting calmly upon his thigh.</p><p>He spoke and gestured with a casual nature that purported that he and Jamie had a preexisting relationship, a natural camaraderie that aged and marinated over years of close acquaintanceship. Jamie found it to be galling. He felt mocked by the prepensed dialogue. He'd been a guest of the Mackenzies for a month now and his uncle hadn't graced him with more than a few utterances or a rough pat on the back in passing.</p><p>Behind Jamie was a syncopated mesh of horse hooves as the animals pushed through the rough hewn terrain. The party of men was comprised of about a dozen Highlanders-Dougal's men on account of how they hushed and went rigid when he entered their midst- and two loaded wagons filled with ale for the road, piles of bread and a two half-full sacks of grains, pistols, and rifles, netting, baskets, and a few trunks. Two high poles were pushed into mounting brackets on the wagons and the royal blue cloths of the Mackenzie flags rippled with a ferocity and gentleness at the same time as they rode.</p><p>Murtagh was riding observently behind Jamie and behind him were Angus and Rupert, and further to the back was Claire riding side by side with a short man Jamie identified via eavesdropping as Ned Gowan, the lawyer in service of Leoch.</p><p>He couldn't have been a Highlander, for he was a smartly dressed man with ruffles that spun out from under the burgundy cuffs of his leather coat, and he had gold rimmed glasses that set upon the beak-like arch of his nose. He didn't wear a kilt, nor did he wear a Mackenzie brooch or any ornament declaring his self to any of the clans. How on earth had a Lowlander come into the twines of the Mackenzies and without conflict or abuse?</p><p>Even curiouser, Claire and Gowan had some apparent semblance of familiarity with each other, which Jamie found to be a chagrin upon his spirit.</p><p>It was not within his character to harbor jealous thoughts nor ill thoughts to an ostensibly harmless man. Mr. Gowan's presence seemed to do Claire no injury of any means.</p><p>Were his ears playing an aural trick on him, he'd be disposed to think that the laugh he heard, a coil of sound that found its way from the back of the party right to his ears, didn't belong to her. But it so plainly did. It was a sound that came to be very precious to him. When she laughed, it meant she was at ease. He should be grateful for her ease.</p><p>Selfish thoughts seized all reasoning and goodwill, though.</p><p>He longed to ride beside her and speak quietly with her about things that brought pleasure to them both. Instead his attentions were demanded by his uncle. And there was little to be done about that.</p><p>Dougal Mackenzie was nothing like Colum Mackenzie. The War Chief wielded his charisma like it was the broadsword scabbarded at his hip. He spoke with adamant confidence and as though consequence mattered naught to him, for he was invincible and unconquerable, and yet, his words betrayed his intelligence and true intent to anyone brave enough to stare into his hawk-like blue eyes.</p><p>Colum didn't seem to care for pretense. His bluntness seemed enough to stifle one into immediate obedience or restrain them to silence at the most. Dougal preferred to move like a knife spreading butter over a biscuit, fluffy and fresh and steaming. Jamie kept his mouth sealed but his eyes attentive.</p><p>"Will ye no' speak lad or has yer thrapple gone feeble?"</p><p>Jamie released a noise that was part laugh part sigh.</p><p>"Nay, I'm just thinking ahead about our journey. First time on Mackenzie lands, after all." It wasn't an entirely false statement.</p><p>"Och dinnae fash, young James," Dougal placated, "It's no' matter wi' the means to trouble a spirit even in one such as yer own. Ye'll rightly see what the Mackenzie way is and ye'll ken some of these lands weel enough on yer own soon."</p><p>Jamie didn't like the sound of that. Dougal presented his remarks with hints of unspoken promise and unshared plans.</p><p>"We'll hit up three large steads in this village. Only aboot a six miles out. Collecting credits shouldna take too long. 'Tis a small a village and the people are fine ladies and gentlemen. The next village is further out. We'll be making camp halfway through and stop to let Ned do the accounting."</p><p>"I'll handle that," Jamie said. "I'm sure yer lawyer is a man of exceptional ethics but I'm used to doing a bit of accounting on my own. For my clan. We've done tours such as this to gather support and raise capital for any extra goods and materials. I've ample experience."</p><p>Dougal fixed a tense look, his dark eyebrows peppered with silver falling into flat lines.</p><p>"But have ye done it on Mackenzie lands afore? No. So Leoch's lawyer will. And then the credits will be transferred to ye for ye to do as ye will of yer own accord, lad."</p><p>Jamie glanced back at his godfather, wordlessly expressing his self, and back to his uncle.</p><p>"The only accordance I wish to act upon is to devote the credits we amass to the land I'm meant to work. Yer land. I've no nefarious intentions if that is what ye suspect of me, Dougal."</p><p>"And I'm glad to hear of it, lad. But nay, I dinna suspect ye of anything. Ye've given me no such cause yet," Dougal gave him a smile that hovered around the slants of his eyes, not quite reaching them. "That willna be a problem for ye, will it? Letting our men handle the business afore ye do?"</p><p>"We're no' here to be fashing and protesting," Murtagh piped up from behind them both. "Just get the credits so we can op and tail it back to Leoch."</p><p>Dougal semi-rotated his body to intake the countenance of his godfather. Jamie could see the mental arithmetic unfolding in his eyes. His horse neighed brusquely and he wasted no attention on it. A flicker of satisfactory thought tinged his silvery blue eyes and Jamie saw yet another smile that hadn't reached his eyes furl on his mustache-thicketed lips.</p><p>"Now my recollection has resolved itself. Fitzgibbons, arena ye? I remember ye traveling at Brian Fraser's side often during yer visits to the castle. Ye were cousin tae him. Less weather on yer face, too. Less hair." </p><p>Taken aback by his uncle's remarks, Jamie tilted his head over, careful to keep his eyes on the unfamiliar road and his horse steady on the new path while he anticipated his godfather's response. It was a great rarity to hear his godfather utter anything of his life before Jamie.</p><p>It washed over Jamie steadily, a small collection of memories of the man and catalogues of his character that he made through their interactions. It never crossed his mind to ponder upon who the man he loved like a father was before all of this. He'd only known Murtagh as someone he relied on and trusted, as someone whose existence centered on protection and loyalty. How had the schism between Clan Fraser and Clan Mackenzie affected him?</p><p>Jamie felt like a babe encountering a new discovery, only it didn't inspire awe or excitement. Instead it cut itself deeply into him, the dawning of his godfather's life veiled away.</p><p>There was a gaping pause in the air as the horses' hoofbeats suddenly became more randomized and the chatter from the other men grew lazier.</p><p>"'Twas a verra long time ago," Murtagh spoke dourly. "And it's <em>Fitzgibbons</em>-Fraser." </p><p>Dougal nodded, his smile sharpening. "Aye I recall things better now. Ye fancied one of ma sisters and ye thought naebody kent-"</p><p>"If ye dinna mind, we've a ride aheid of us and I dinna care for sharing stories while we're on the road as though we're gathered round the fire smoking trout and regaling folktales," his godfather snapped.</p><p>"I forgot to ask," Dougal went on, not caring one bit about Murtagh's surly mood. "Are ye James' manservant now? Is that what Brian's put ye op to these days?"</p><p>"He's my godfather," Jamie interjected. "We barely ken each other, uncle, could ye no' insult the man closest to me after my father? Now I reckon the two of ye have a considerable history that precedes my birth but I'm in no such mood for drivel or conflict so stave it off for another time, eh?"</p><p>"Fair enough," Dougal said and shrugged his shoulders as if he laid his pursuit to rest. But Jamie knew something else was coming. "Pacifist, are ye?"</p><p>"I'm as hotheaded as a Fraser comes," Jamie assured him. "I'm a pragmatist above all else. But I've been pushed beyond reason from time to time."</p><p>Dougal hadn't said anything to that. He regarded him with a firm deliberation.</p><p>Jamie fixed his eyes on the black waves of Donas' mane, flushing and expunging all contemplation from his head.</p><p>He clenched his jaw and instead laid his thoughts upon Claire and what she was doing right now. He knew she was conversing with the lawyer still but perhaps when her gob stopped its macking and she pet Elspeth in tender manner that her private thoughts laid upon him as well. Perhaps their minds met in embrace over the almost urgent longing to ride together and be complacent in that arrangement.</p><p>His eyes shot back to Dougal, whose own eyes were now trained on the road, and he cursed him silently for orchestrating their riding rows like this. </p><p>After an more hour of riding, they came up to their first village, a humble smattering of cottages and minimal livestock, no archway, only two stacks of stones with an iron placard where the name of the property was welded into the surface.</p><p>Dougal raised a fist to the heavens and bellowed. "The Mackenzies of Leoch are here!"</p><p>Jamie looked down self consciously at his Fraser tartan and summoned to his mind the image of the Fraser crest and motto. Je Suis Prest. He was ready.</p><p>A few busy souls cheered at the sighting of their War Chief and some the clansmen they presumably recognized from Quarter Day.</p><p>Dougal went ahead without bringing Jamie along to converse with them. He looked over his shoulder and he could see the other men dismounting and tending to their horses and to the wagons. Some followed Dougal to greet the people they were acquainted with.</p><p>There was an unostentatious flame burning in a pit of rocks in front of a lopsided cottage. Two ducks were being presently roasted by a cotter. The men were hungry and without a doubt two measly ducks wouldn't feed the belly of one grizzly Highlander after a time on the road without stopping for refreshments, let alone a dozen. But the cotter who'd been roasting his food benignly offered to share his meal meant to be enjoyed alone before the clansmen of Leoch arrived unexpectedly and said men took him up on his offer.</p><p>Jamie immediately realized this was his opportunity to have a moment of light chatter with Claire and properly introduce his self to Ned Gowan. He signaled to Murtagh to tend to Donas and quietly pleaded to his horse not to be so belligerent to his godfather today.</p><p>He came upon the two amid conversation and discretely albeit obtrusively cleared his throat.</p><p>Claire's eyes swept over him invitingly.</p><p>"Jamie, have you yet met Mister Gowan?" she said, her voice cheery. "We were discussing his routine with rent collecting and how he came into the employ of Clan Mackenzie."</p><p>Jamie stood a foot taller than the older man and Claire herself was a considerable number of inches taller than him as well. His pale eyes twinkled with intelligence and kindness and Jamie reluctantly let the tension of jealousy stored up in his body go.</p><p>"No, we havena properly introduced ourselves yet. James Fraser," Jamie clasped Ned Gowan's hand with a hearty grip. "Laird-to-be of Broch Tuarach and stand in Master of Agriculture for Clan Mackenzie. Pleased to make yer acquaintance, Mister Gowan."</p><p>Ned revealed a full set of sparkling white teeth as he smiled, shaking Jamie's hand in vigorous glee.</p><p>"I ken fine who ye are, James Fraser. Please, call me Ned."</p><p>"Aye. Ned," Jamie said, eyes flitting to Claire, who beamed at him. "I suppose ye do ken who I am already, wi' Dougal arranging for ye to transfer the credits to me after ye log the numbers."</p><p>"Weel," he chuckled, "That and a bit more. I kent yer mother when she was a lass, god rest her soul." They both crossed their chests in unison and Jamie thanked him stiffly. "I was the one who drew up the marriage contract for her and her originally intended suitor afore yer father swept her off her feet and away from Leoch. I ended up having to draw up a new marriage contract that would satisfy Clan Grant and avoid all out clan warfare."</p><p>Ned laughed lightly but Jamie began to feel rigid and felt his fists tightening. Claire must have noticed because her smile flattened and she disguised the worried look in her eyes for sternness given the nature of the subject matter change.</p><p>"A blessed union she found herself in all on her own," Ned continued in elegant obliviousness, "A union ye were borne of. I commend her for it. Ye're a braw and accomplished lad, by the way Claire here has regaled me wi' some of yer capabilities, and the verra spit of dearest Ellen only wi' a manlier physiognomy, mind ye. And the associated Mackenzie loftiness of course. I want ye to ken I am more than happy to make yer acquaintance as weel, Fraser."</p><p>"Aye..." Jamie answered, chest swelling with surprise at Ned Gowan's expressions. He smiled warmly. "Thank ye."</p><p>Dougal shouted his name and summoned him along with Ned. Jamie parted a resigned look to Claire as he went to go meet his uncle's demand.</p><p>He was introduced to the kind cotter who allowed the men to ravage his roasted ducks along with his wife and five wee children, two of which were missing their front teeth, and neither of them no more than a year apart in age it seemed. The other cotters that were invited out had families of their own as well.</p><p>Soon they were surrounded by dozens of menfolk and womenfolk. They approached Jamie with reluctance towards his bearing of colors that didn't represent the Mackenzies. But Dougal explained away their relation and then launched Jamie into the wild so to speak, to talk to the villagers about what he was doing and why they needed to raise credits to improve land arability.</p><p>He gave a rehearsed speech about making their bellies plump once with more than just oats and butter and bannocks and about introducing longer lasting crops to the land, enough to reserve for their families for the upcoming seasons and for the British patrollers who came by to collect their goods and take up lodgings.</p><p>Jamie allowed the cotters to examine his drawings closely though many of them didn't understand some of the Latin he'd written in and to the best of his efforts he tried to render their understanding of the workings of his proposed machinery uncomplicated and avoid talk of superstition.</p><p>It was a rather simple argument, after all. If they wanted a better and safer way of life, they would offer what they could to acquire it and support the repurposing of the land. <em>Their</em> land. If not...nothing could be done. They would fend for themselves in a losing fight against the land and to the British.</p><p>Dougal and Ned allowed him to do all the talking about agriculturalist affairs and the proceedings went handsomely. The villagers didn't seem over-troubled about the nature of donating once Jamie put the direness of their situation in candid perspective. The villagers announced that they recently sold off livestock and had enough to deposit to the credits pouch that Ned carried. Once they agreed to make the exchange, Dougal gave Jamie a look that meant to step aside at once.</p><p>He didn't enjoy being pushed out of the credit-collecting process but he wasn't about to overindulge his self in Mackenzie business either. It was Mackenzie credits anyways.</p><p>Things continued on that way unceremoniously for the most part with each village they rode into.</p><p>With no word given ahead of time, the men were regularly taken aback by their unbidden presence and the wives were characteristically disoriented and expressed frustration at their lack of preparedness for hospitality for the Laird and War Chief's men, and the youngsters were always buzzing and nosey. Their glee at the welcomed sight of their esteemed War Chief was shortly succeeded by their confusion when they set their eyes upon the Fraser man that addressed them. "Ellen's child. He's the Mackenzie blood," Dougal would say each time, proffering explanation for his height and red hair.</p><p>Skepticism was tempered into investment with the work of Jamie's honeyed tongue. And Colum had been right enough about Dougal's presence being a comfort to the people. He was very well liked by the villagers indeed. Jamie presumed that his War Chief uncle did regular tours for rent collection and the like on behalf of Colum. Not unlike Jamie's own role at Broch Tuarach, and the stronger knowledge he developed at Clan Fraser once he began taking over for his father in the rent collection and touring. Seeing how the Mackenzies clasped each other's arms and greeted each other in their Gaelic nicknames for each other made Jamie ache once more for his home, for his family, for his clansmen.</p><p>With Dougal's backing, the people's trust in Jamie's efforts was reinforced, and Ned's pouch was fattening beautifully and by the second week they were halfway through their tour.</p><p>Dougal proposed that they stop and make camp for a couple of days on an open stretch of a rolling meadow near a burn and all the men felt that it was agreeable.</p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Were it up to Claire, she knew with an absolute certainty that she would've led the men further out until they found a tavern to board in. After weeks of riding on horse and standing around for hours while the men conducted business, such an abode was the most invitational thing to her, even if she should have to share her lodgings with a dozen Viking sized and ribald tongued men. At least they would be sheltered under a solid roof and  guaranteed to be serviced with warm porridge in the mornings and steaming bowls of stew in the evenings. And to be accommodated with mug of tea or honey-sweetened goats milk would be favorable to the bitter ale that had been rotting her taste buds.</p><p>The meadow was garnished sparsely with spots of oaks and maples. As far as the eye could see, they were quite exposed on the open rows of grass. Shelter certainly would be minimal. If it rained, she was properly fucked. A word Claire didn't use unless it unreservedly applied to circumstance.</p><p>This was the first Spring she's spent in Scotland where there haven't been great deluges and storms, but chances couldn't be taken. Warmer weather in Scotland was uncharacteristic, after all. One couldn't plan ahead sufficiently in an unpredictable trend. She didn't bring enough layers to guard against potential pneumonia, which she undoubtedly would contract after getting soaked to the bone.</p><p>Her mind was over-exhausting itself.</p><p>Perhaps it was that she was feeling bordered by an energy she couldn't stand any longer.</p><p>She could only discuss but so much politics and business with Ned, though she had enjoyed his benevolent engagement with her. And she could only take but so much crude talk from the men ahead and behind her. She grew up mostly in the company of men- her uncle's colleagues or those courting similar professions- and even when Lamb had her stationed for her formal education, the bulk of her university mates were males. Not nearly enough women were sent abroad to formally study medicine.</p><p>Claire was no stranger to the unrelenting ways that men consumed the atmosphere with their bawdy talk. But she'd had enough. Especially because when they weren't being coarse, they were chatting in Gaelic, a purposeful tool of exclusion that Claire came to recognize was implemented whenever she was in earshot of them.</p><p>She didn't speak a lick of Gaelic. Outside of associating derogatory meanings with hardly a handful of words, the language eluded her and they all knew it. The bitterness was stabbing.</p><p>She needed to shatter the hardening surface of monotony and escape the confines of her sour emotions.</p><p>Dismounting from Elspeth, she led her newly gifted sweet mare to where the other horses had been tied off. She thanked her horse for not holding her in contempt and wished she had mint leaves or sugar cubes to feed her. Claire stroked Elspeth's cinnamon mane as she overheard Dougal giving the men instructions for their impermanent base.</p><p>She looked over and spotted Jamie leaning against a tree, arms creased against his chest, face set in a relaxed expression. His godfather sat a few feet away, twirling his dirk into the grass and heeding instruction from the War Chief as well.</p><p>Pushing her curls behind her shoulders, Claire walked as inconspicuously as a woman of her height could over to where Jamie stood. He saw her coming and his cat-like eyes pinched with a smile.</p><p>"Hi, lass," he said.</p><p>"Hi, lad," Claire returned.</p><p>They snorted like pesky children bound to have their knuckles rapped by their pious Catholic teacher.</p><p>Murtagh reared his head to look at the two of them disapprovingly.</p><p>"Mr. Fraser," Claire indulged him with a nod. "Good day to you, sir." Do mind your business, she hoped to communicate.</p><p>While Dougal spoke, Claire continued to exchange glances with Jamie, smiling and nudging his shoulder with her hers. Not that he ever budged. The man was as solid as oak from what she could tell. Each minor nudge against him was met with a reversion of force that could've knocked the breath out of her. It was formidable, how apparent his strength was, and she wondered what it was like to have such a constitution stored up in ones body.</p><p>Just as she started settling with contentment in his company, Dougal called upon Jamie and she did her best to control how her chest deflated with annoyance.</p><p>He went over to one of the wagons that was being unloaded by some of the men and convened with Ned Gowan and his uncle. She narrowed her eyes, recognizing the small bronze and silver squares unloading from Ned's pouch onto a terrycloth laid out at the base of the wagon. She expected that they would do the accounting once they settled into the camp. Perhaps not. Claire eyes flitted to and fro in a surreptitious act, demurely raising a hand to one of her stray curls so as not to look too keen on the business unfolding across ways to any spectators.</p><p>"Get ye goin', lass," Murtagh suddenly stood in front of her, only an inch or two above her forehead but still intimidating nonetheless with his dark eyebrows furled low and his brown eyes communicating his distrust of her quite candidly.</p><p>"Are you planning on setting up your arrangements at this tree, Mr. Fitzgibbons? Otherwise I don't see why I have to move."</p><p>"The lad isna moving anywhere far enough to lose sight of ye so ye may as weel go on, get yer things, and step aside," Murtagh said.</p><p>Claire's nostrils flared as she started to protest the man but it would be useless to try to contradict him, wouldn't it. This man was Jamie's lifelong watchman. He was shrewd enough to pick anyone's lock, she reckoned.</p><p>His choice of words had the desired affect and Claire muttered beneath her breath as she pulled her tartan roll, an unassuming pattern of greys and black, and rolled it out near a small boulder where she could prop her things. The earth was soft beneath her arse, cupping her form where she sat. She placed her medical kit down and her canteen which would need to be refilled soon.</p><p>Around her the small camp began to take form as the men began arranging their materials to look more established. They laid out their Mackenzie tartans for their bedding and a tall flag was tacked into the ground- a marking that Clan Mackenzie was settled here. An invitation to death to any eager and foolish band of robbers who may strike the most formidable clansmen in the Highlands. And a warning to the wise and the cautious to stay away.</p><p>As she watched them working on a fire pit, Claire was reminded tenderly of Uncle Lamb and how he bestowed upon her suitable knowledge about surviving in the vast outdoors, even taking residence comfortably out here, were that a way of life she was interested in. She knew things a lady oughtn't and slept in places the world considered to be less than undignified for someone of her social standing. She was grateful to the uncustomary world she was designed in, for this environment was far from unfamiliar to her.</p><p>One of the men chirped about gathering a few clansmen to take a trip down to the burn to fish for salmon and collect wildberries if they encountered some near the water. Jamie volunteered to go with them.</p><p>"I'm coming with you," Claire shot up like a ball in a lit cannon.</p><p>"Ye will stay put," Dougal retorted from where he stood. Half of his face was hidden by the enormous tam that curved against his head and his face had been turned away from her as he was still speaking with Ned Gowan but she knew straightaway that he bore a dismissive expression.</p><p>"Why? I can fish perfectly well," Claire demanded an answer from the brute.</p><p>Yes, brute. If there was anyone she despised more than Colum Mackenzie it was Dougal Mackenzie.</p><p>He was a bold lecher who only stopped in his pursuits once they encroached the thresholds of rape. There was always talk about his exploits and indeed many of the women of Leoch did have a yearning to be a conquest of Dougal Mackenzie's. His age was no deterrent to women's attraction to him and while he was admittedly handsome, his arrogant attitude and bullish persona made it impossible for Claire to feel anything other than contempt for him. If Colum ever heard about Dougal's carnal adventures among his land, and he no doubt did, he certainly didn't make a fuss about it and while Claire was certain that he didn't approve, he didn't seem eager to condemn his brother's actions either.</p><p>She'd seen him one dreadful night, caught in the thick fog of drunken passion, ploughing one of Leoch's kitchen maids with a most foul abandon. She had stepped out for fresh air during one of Colum's great dinners and there he was at one of the castle's edges shrouded by overgrown moss. The front of her dress had been unbuttoned and her breasts swung like hammocks and she'd seen more of Dougal than she would've liked. He asked her with spit gleaming down the steel hairs on his beard while he moved in seeming determination to split the woman in two if she was keen to join them or would she just stand there watching.</p><p>Claire took care to never be solitary in proximity to the man. He never hid that he wasn't above mounting a Sassenach and he took care to vulgarly express as much whenever he had the opportunity to.</p><p>She narrowed her eyes at him, willing him to meet her scowl.</p><p>"Let the lady along," Jamie's voice wafted through the precipitation of tension betwixt them. "Or are ye worrit Mistress Claire'll have the brawest catch of ye all, huh?"</p><p>Some of the men thundered with laughter at the notion which they found to be ridiculous that a Sassenach lass could out-fish them. A couple of more men, piqued by the intrigue of challenge, volunteered to come along. It would have been thrilling if their choice was one that stemmed from adventurousness rather than the hopes of seeing her be humiliated.</p><p>"I see the men are carrying baskets. Did you bring rods with you? Or at least string?" Claire asked Jamie as they trudged together behind the cluster of men who knew the way to the burn better than the pair of them.</p><p>"We fish wi' our hands, Sassenach. Have ye never seen a Highlander guddle afore?"</p><p>Claire stopped abruptly, feet thudding to an angry halt.</p><p>"No. That should be obvious."</p><p>Jamie, jerked back by her stillness, cast her a bewildered expression. A light breeze delicately tousled the red springs of curls on his head and she rubbed her arms in response.</p><p>She felt ashamed of her reaction.</p><p>"I'm sorry, I-"</p><p>"Dinna be," Jamie said immediately. His voice was tight and focused.</p><p>The men continued bobbing and chortling and the distance between them and the others thickened and Claire felt the ligaments in her hand flex with a need as instinctual as the nerves beneath her milky skin to join hands with Jamie's. The sound of the burn's rustling waters and herons calling through the skies could almost relax her if she allowed her self to indulge in the noise.  </p><p>She looked to Jamie with persistent apology in her eyes.</p><p>"Something is troubling ye, Claire," he said patently. His mouth fell into a flat and serious line.</p><p>'Yes, but-" she simmered with the heat of frustration. "I don't..." her voice dribbled away.</p><p>The grass sighed under Jamie's boots as he stepped closer to her.</p><p>"Ye do ken ye can tell me anything that crosses yer mind...anything that makes ye uneasy in yer wame and in yer heart?"</p><p>She nodded and hoarsely said, "Yes."</p><p>She didn't know when her hand had finally moved. But in an instant as incalculable as the speed of lightning striking the earth yet as perceptible as air expelled from the lungs, her hand was in his, warm and calloused yet tender.</p><p>Her hand was small like a bud and his hand was large like petals blooming forth and together they'd made a flower. She felt something start to emanate from their contact- feeling the currents of his blood coursing and feeling his heart throbbing and feeling his ruminations- feeling him urging her to find calmness from her unspoken troubles.</p><p><em>Do you feel that,</em> she began to ask. But his expression was steady despite how his eyes bore into hers. The words stayed at bay on the tip of her tongue, never to reach the shores of verbalization.</p><p>A whoop in the distance reminded them of their destination and their hands parted like linen torn in two as they remembered they were to meet with the men at the burn.</p><p>But the spell was not broken. Jamie's touch had a restorative effect on her.</p><p>In the tumults of her spirit, the discomfort and vexation quelled down like liquid ejected through a drain and was supplanted by the vigor Claire knew herself to possess.</p><p>She didn't know how Jamie understood what she needed. Every moment that they shared came around her in an unprecedented embrace. She would have had chills but his touch had settled her so well, she was a mountain tethered to the earth.  </p><p>Fishing with one's hands was safer in the day than at night. In the day, visibility was superior largely in thanks to the graces of natural light and the water was warmer- less probability of catching hypothermia if they were to wade in at night when the earth was iced over with chill. Warmer didn't necessarily mean more accommodating, though. They were still in the Scottish Highlands after all.</p><p>"Oh!" Claire lightly exclaimed when she dipped her arm into the water. She wriggled her fingers experimentally, white phalanges dancing in the frothing stream, and let shudders roll through her body until she acclimatized herself to the frigidity. The other men pretended not to watch, making splashes at each other and making sport rather than focusing on their own fishing.</p><p>"Who taught ye to guddle?" Jamie asked incredulously.</p><p>Claire had picked a spot closer to wild growth. It would be comfortable when she sat back on her haunches. Jamie decided that the place she picked was good enough for him.</p><p>"I learned how when I was in Asia-"</p><p>"Ye traveled to<em> Asia, </em>Sassenach?"</p><p>"-I did," Claire went on, "My uncle was staying in a small village nestled quite deeply into the woods not unlike where we are now. The people were kind and joyed to receive us. One of their common rituals of hospitality was catching the largest fish they could find and presenting it to their guests of honor. So they would send their best fishermen to the lake and they would be gone for many hours," Claire rolled the sleeves of her dress higher up and lowered her hand back into the stream, "Not returning until they found a fish fat enough and henceforth worthy enough of an invitational feast."</p><p>"And they showed ye how they do it?"</p><p>"Only after I begged one of the few fishermen who spoke a semblance of our tongue to let me along the next time their fishermen went out to hunt. So he did. The first thing he taught me was to pick a place where the water moved steadily rather than at a gushing pace. And to look for small rocks and spikes of grass growing out the water. They're a good place to hide your hand for the unsuspecting fish that come by."</p><p>"Aye."</p><p>"It takes a bloody lot of patience. One doesn't have a chance of catching anything til after about twenty minutes or so of wading."</p><p>"Yer body temperature," Jamie added, drawing his sleeves up until Claire could see the speckles of copper hairs herding down his forearms, "They can tell when ye're too warm. The cooler ye are the better. They canna tell the difference between yer hand and the nearest pebble in the burn."</p><p>"Precisely," Claire nodded, amused but unsurprised by his knowledge. Naturally a farmer and soon to be leader of a clan and mass property knew about aquatic functions. "And of course, oh! You need bait. Dammit, I forgot that..."</p><p>Jamie's enormous hand darted out to a litter of medium sized rocks near the line of the water and with barely a grunt he uprooted one from the ground turning it on its dirt-crusted back. The small depression left in the earth from the weight of the rock revealed a congregation of squirming  worms. He picked one up and dangled it before Claire's eyes.</p><p>"For ye, my lady," he did a half curtsy, his kilt swishing gracefully, and Claire giggled at his gesture, taking the worm carefully from him.</p><p>"Most obliged, my lad."</p><p>Jamie raised his eyebrows with surprise. "Ye arena squeamish about it? My sister hates the wiggly wee things. I used to chase her around the house wi' them."</p><p>"God no. I love insects and such. They're excellent for physicking. I only don't like the pestilential sort. Cockroaches and woodlice for instance. Very nasty. The herb garden was overrun with woodlice once and I all but clawed the skin off my face when I chanced upon a hatchling. Anyhow, you stick the poor bugger in the water like so and you let the rest do the work." Claire shoved the worm in the water demonstrably.</p><p>They returned to camp hours later with a trumpeting declaration that Claire had caught the largest salmon of all the men. Her drenched basket was the heaviest and though it felt like her arm would fall off upon any moment's notice, she carried it with pride, grinning boastfully as her curls tangled in the wind.</p><p>She set her basket down triumphantly before Dougal. It made an unpleasant sloshing noise against the ground and the salmon's eyes were bugged out, mouth gaped open, and marred by a thin line where Jamie's blade had pierced its brain to give it an instant non-suffering death.</p><p><em>Take that, you prick, </em>she sent the message to the war chief.</p><p>And as for the rest of the men in the camp, they had no other choice than to greet her with nods of concession and half grunts of acknowledgements of her conquest. They would feast tonight knowing the Sassenach lass out-fished all the men.</p><p>When the night came, they ate their salmon for supper and divided the shallow basket of wildberries that Jamie successfully picked from a bush at the burn amongst each other. The large fire illuminated everyone's faces in a marigold glow and the shadows swayed in between the light in a rhythmic tango.</p><p>Rupert sat at the north end of the circle telling a story in Gaelic for all the men to hear. A folktale of some sort, for he moved his face in sensational manners and his voice rattled between varied octaves. His mouth was half full with food but his listeners managed to understand him quite alright, for the men were absorbed in his tale.</p><p>Well, almost all the men.</p><p>Jamie sat directly across from her, the only thing separating them was the blazing pit. He was chewing his dinner mindfully, dipping his dirk into his salmon every so often and swiping the flesh into his mouth with his thumb. He wasn't heeding a single word from Rupert's fish filled mouth. He wasn't nodding his head in concert nor did he ho and hum like the other men did.</p><p>He was watching her.</p><p>Two ruby curls hung over each eye, creating a rendition of the devil almost, and the embers of the flame were undulating slowly, aiding the alluring image of the man. Her first thought had been that she must have gotten food on her mouth or perhaps her dress and she blushed, self consciously swiping over herself to rid of any mess. But she was as clean as one can be out on the road, and her hand descended with a slow conclusion down to the rim of her plate.</p><p>She felt throttled by his gaze and unpermitted to move another limb.</p><p>His pink lips closed around his thumb as he popped a berry into his mouth.</p><p>They were the only silent ones at the camp and their wordless exchange grew louder by each moment.</p><p>From the time she was a teenager she had come to know the way desire looked on a man. How it hung in a man's eyes and quirked on his mouth. How man orbited around a woman when she was the was the focus of his need.</p><p>She thought Jamie's look was something akin to that. And something more. An intensity she never beheld in her life.</p><p>When he cocked her a half smile, she felt the escalation of goosebumps prickling over every inch of her skin. Heat burst and sweltered within her with the beautifully scorching fury of reddened coal. Dampness laid between the secrets of her clamped thighs beneath the billows of her skirt.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>With a new horse to call her own and a month-long expedition out on the road, far beyond the stuffy fortress of stones that was Castle Leoch, Claire had imagined a more adventurous trek for herself at the outset. Her thoughts wandered about colorfully and her imagination rocketed with prospects. What precisely it was she was expecting, she didn't fully know. But she'd conceptualized an abstract miscellany of livelier things. She'd been disappointingly naïve. No, not naïve, simply wrong.</p><p>She experienced more excitement when she was observing the Buddhist Monks from afar as a teen, peering over the edge of the partition in the guest home to watch their glacial ascent over the candle-lit bridge to their temple. Their stone-faced stroll of unison aroused more awe than the swarm of large Highlanders she rode with.</p><p>She found scarce recompense in her companionable moments she and Jamie managed to capture. For they were just that. Moments and nothing more. Whether they drew their horses' heads close when watering them to converse with each other or called each other's names from the opposite spectrums of the lines on which they rode or huddled when on the ground in the villages they went to, Dougal always needed him nearby.</p><p>It was ostensible that he would wrap a leash around Jamie's neck if he could. Claire didn't like that one bit.</p><p>Instead of being exposed to adventure, she was burdened with the harrowing sense that she was in the midst of plot. A plot with the intention to succeed in what? She hadn't known. But she knew she was inescapably suspicious of Dougal's decree to have Ned sort through the funds rather than Jamie, given that this expedition had been his idea first and foremost. And she knew Jamie felt the same way.</p><p>She speculated it was a display of power. Dougal being a War Chief and the man that frequently acted a proxy for his chieftain meant that his courses of actions were steered by political aim.</p><p>Dougal was a man bonded to his existence as a flame that raged everything in its path. He felt the need to assert his power before Jamie who, by Claire's rudimentary understanding of the clan system, was above him in ranking, being Laird-to-be and all things that followed.</p><p>Riding near Gowan afforded her the chances to comprehend a scarce amount of what his and the War Chief's plans were. Gowan scribbled scrupulously into his ledger and it was agreed upon between the two that they needed to make a few more stops to raise more credits than what Jamie had proposed.</p><p>Jamie hadn't discussed the numbers with her in any detailed capacity, but she understood it wasn't an absurd or inconceivable summation that was expected to be raised. She didn't think Jamie would ask too much of people he didn't have a preexisting relationship with. It had all been a delicate ordeal for him, and the liberties Dougal chose to take only lent more credence to her distrust of the man.</p><p>They were constantly politicking and enticing.</p><p>A capability Jamie was well armed with. But Claire could see the wearisome looks he cast to the ground once he moved away from the commotion of the villagers. How much longer, she thought, could it go on? Dougal's strange chess-like operations made it difficult for Claire to ascertain. She didn't know whether to let Jamie work these things out between his uncle on his own or if she should get in his ear so to speak, about her ruminations.</p><p>She gave herself the challenge of seeking something fascinating with every village they rode into, and every cotter they met, each crossroads they halted at. She immersed herself in the land all around her- the mountains erected to unfathomable heights that surrounded them, the sprinkles of rain that littered their journey, always shy of a life threatening deluge. The way the ground always smelt of damp pine. Springtime in the Highlands was beautiful.</p><p>Claire picked up small things along the way. She collected assortments of mushrooms from the nooks of trees that she might make medicinal use of later, and dandelions to blow on once she found herself trenched in boredom. She ended up collecting many of them.</p><p>One evening, Dougal declared that they were at their final village and that they could begin to make their rounds back to the castle at the end of this. All of the men were eager to return to their homes and the customary routines of their lives. They'd have been on the road for a month now and with monotonous meals to consume and no women to warm their tartans, the constitutions of their moods grew to one of homesickness and wornness.</p><p>It could hardly be called a village. A village was an established settlement at the least, with roads and taverns and cabins and such. This appeared more like a forgotten outpost. There were four huts as far as the naked eye could see, with hay roofs and one small fence with a goat, shaggy, but otherwise kempt and plump. Whoever lived here was investing all of their resources into this goat, that much was apparent to Claire.</p><p>They unhorsed and entered the property as Dougal heralded their presence. Instead of a sparse crowd gathering into the dirt path of the would-be courtyard, out came one woman in threadbare dress, in an apron Claire imagined was once as white as the down of a dove, now faded to a yellow color and browned at the edges. Her hair was an ashy brown and it was woven into a thick plait that slacked around her shoulder. A baby was tied to her hip in a snug wrap of the Mackenzie tartan. It looked like it was an infant. Its head was no larger than a coconut. </p><p>Dougal swaggered over to her while Jamie remained by his horse.</p><p>The woman began speaking in Gaelic hurriedly, the look of apology resting on her face as she rubbed the back of the squirming babe. Her voice was strung with anxiousness while Dougal's Gaelic speech burled. She looked aged by stress and was probably a few years younger than what her appearance portrayed. Large man that Dougal was, he was undoubtedly intimidating her and overpowering her. It didn't make any sense, despite Claire not knowing what words were being exchanged in the elusive language, she could see the woman wasn't in protest to what ever Dougal had told her but it was escalating the woman's distress and the war chief seemed unwilling to employ any sympathy whatsoever to her grievances.</p><p>"Edina," she'd at last heard a clear word from betwixt them. A name that belonged to the woman.</p><p>"What's happened?" Claire drifted to Jamie's side and asked him gingerly, so she wouldn't disrupt the conversation at hand.</p><p>"Dougal's taken it upon himself to ask the woman for funds and lodging," Jamie responded tersely. "She canna offer what Dougal asks. She says "My husband has been troubled by his injury and I've been taking over the housekeeping duties for him. We just had a bairn and we've been trying to sell wool and pots to the neighboring villages to make ends meet."</p><p>"Oh," Claire commiserated, "That's awful. Can't the other tenants be of any help for this family?"</p><p>"Ssh," Jamie's lips puckered as he hushed her. His eyes narrowed as he keened his senses deeper towards the conversation. Claire waited raptly, eyes jumping between him, Dougal, and Edina. She didn't want to miss a single moment. Jamie let a bit more Gaelic pass between them before he filled Claire in.</p><p> "These other huts are deserted. They've been deserted ever since the redcoats came for lodgings and instead they raided the bit of property they had between each other. Havena been able to make due for weeks. Her husband was tortured when he was taken by them t-to.." he took a quick violent breath, tearing Claire's focus from his words. The skin between his ruddy eyebrows knotted and she saw the muscles in his jaw spasm as if he were gnashing his teeth. "Fort William..." the words fell out of his mouth with a hiss of revulsion.</p><p>A swore cut from Murtagh from the other side of Jamie's horse.</p><p>"Fort William? Christ..." she heard another Highlander whisper.</p><p>"What's Fort William?" she asked. The place conjured chariness among the men and she was curious, albeit chilled.</p><p>"Ye've never heard of it, lass?" Murtagh spoke incredulously.</p><p>"It's where ye send men condemned to a fate worse than burning in hell," Rupert said from beside them, his chubby fingers swiftly marking his torso with a crossing motion, "Most are sent to be hangit after the guards do what they will and how they like. It's no' a pretty place to be."</p><p>"Have ye no' heard about that lad who was taken there when he was just a boy?" Angus supplied. Claire shook her head with purpose and he rubbed his dark beard glossily as if he were an old man talking of the gloomy days of wartime. "An awful sight it was, I heard. Tied the boy op and stripped him down so he was as naked as he was the day he came into this world. A British commander decided that flogging would befit the boy's crimes and so he laid the lashes down wi' a fury only the devil could inspire. Rumor is it was a hundred lashes, have ye ever heard of something sae wicked? He died, I heard. Never came home, I heard. None of his clansmen came to claim him, I heard. What a puir way tae leave this world. Death by a redcoat."</p><p>"He didna die, ye blasted numpty," Rupert whacked him, "We would've heard of a large burial for a lad foully tortured and killed by the British, nay doubt. No one kens precisely what happened to the boy. But if he died, all of the Highlands would ken."</p><p>Angus and Rupert began to bicker among each other about the veritableness of their stories about this mysterious Highlander boy and Claire glanced to Jamie and Murtagh, who were as silent and still as night. Jamie seemed to have forgotten that he was translating for her. She didn't want to ask anything else of him anyways, for something about the mention of Fort William made him recede without commotion into his self. She rubbed her shoulders as she felt chills rising over her entire body.</p><p>Looking back to Edina, who still distressingly appealed to Dougal, her instincts as a medical practitioner took over.</p><p>"May I see your husband?" Claire perked up. "I'm a physician. Erm...a healer."</p><p>"Haud yer weesht, woman," Dougal barked. "I'm conducting business."</p><p>Claire folded her arms, persisting. "It will not take long. I'm very good at what I do and I only wish to observe the man, maybe some of the medicine I've brought along can provide some comfort to Mistress Edina's husband."</p><p>Edina's toffee shaded eyes widened. "Yer a Sassenach?!"</p><p>Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ..</p><p>"No- I canna," tucking her already swaddled baby closer to her as if Claire were carrying a plague, she crooked a finger her way. "'Tis yer kind that brought this havoc down upon us."</p><p>"'My kind?'" Claire scoffed. "I'm not British, I mean I am but... not by land. I'm a traveler. I haven't known many other British people in my life. Let alone the soldiers who have done this to you people. It's not within my conscience to approve of the ongoing abuses that have occurred here by the British." Claire paused, recognizing that she too was a very tall person and thus intimidating to the woman. She wanted to ease her, not encourage hostility. She sighed gently, "Please...I'm a healer. I can help. Your Clan Chief Colum trusts me in the care of Himself, Herself, and his child. I would do no harm to his people. Nor anyone else. It's not within my nature."</p><p>"Ye will examine the husband. Ye'll have half the hour and nothing more," Dougal conceded crabbily, "Then I'll decide how to proceed wi' the collecting."</p><p>The woman clamped her mouth circumspectly. Her eyes buzzed with anxiety as they traveled over Claire, scrutinizing her from head to toe. But seeing as her war chief had given her no choice in the matter, the woman's eyes that were screwed at her with skepticism blended with resignation and she nodded and told Claire to follow her. The entire time she was rubbing the tartan covered bum of her baby in the discrete manner Claire often saw mothers do as a protective gesture. It was a maternal shield, one only done when they marked their environs or an inhabitant as hostile. Claire grimaced internally, recalling Jamie's explanation for the perspectives of the people living here. She was only one woman. One woman couldn't change the minds of a people suffering under the boot of Briton.</p><p>She was led to Edina's hut which was stone on the outside but its interior was all wood, some corners rotten and waterlogged. Claire swatted warningly at the midges who buzzed curiously around her. The woman had been babbling in Gaelic, shuffling to try to tidy up the sparsely decorated space.</p><p>"That's not necessary," Claire tried to assure her but the woman was resolute in her fratchety nature. She put the baby in a basinet of braided straw and rearranged her iron pots and kettle on the small table in the center of the space. There were no candles or lamps lit, for the windows had no curtains and the day provided sufficient natural light. It illuminated the room like beams through a tattered shirt, highlighting the areas Claire reckoned Edina was most embarrassed of.</p><p>"Please, Mistress Edina, it's quite alright. I'm not here to cast judgment upon your living arrangements. It may be a humble establishment but it is your home. There's no need to feel ashamed. I'm here as a physician- er sorry, healer- not a property inspector."</p><p>Edina spun on her heels, facing Claire with a face coated in perspiration. Claire offered her a kind smile, meant from the honest depths of her.</p><p>"Is your husband resting?"</p><p>"Yes- weel- no. He has trouble sleeping. He's in bed at the moment but I dinna think he's in deep rest," Edina stammered through her elaboration. Claire felt sorry for the nerves the woman was clearly overwhelmed with. "How may ye like me to call upon ye?"</p><p>"Mistress Claire Beauchamp," Claire said, surprised that the woman turned down a cordial route. "Or simply Mistress Beauchamp. That's what I'm called at Castle Leoch."</p><p>Edina nodded breathlessly. "Claire Beauchamp? A verra British name. Sounds like ye come from a great means."</p><p>"I suppose," Claire shrugged away the woman's implications, "But those means aren't a reflection of my person."</p><p>"Is there a chance ye can do yer healing and observing wi'out speaking?"</p><p>"Whatever for?" Claire frowned, medical box clinking as she pressed her arms to her hips. "Is your husband stricken by unbearable headaches?"</p><p>"Nay," Edina looked down, cheeks tinting with the blush of embarrassment. "'Tis yer Sassenach accent, ken? My husband...he was abused verra badly by yer folk. Tae hear the lilt alone would send him into a disarrayed tempest.. Mayhaps ye could feign to be a mute beatony? Or a- a wise woman? Ye're sae tall and queenly, ye could fool me had ye no' flapped yer tongue and revealed yer British brogue."</p><p>"I'll think of something," Claire smiled with promise, "Now, you heard your War Chief. We haven't much time. Can you describe your husband's condition to me briefly?"</p><p>Reaching into the pocket of her apron, she unearthed a brass cross and she held it covetously and kissed it with benediction as she declared it was the lord's will that her husband still breathed and walked the land of this world. She told her about the same as Jamie did. Her husband Ruaridh was falsely accused of theft by a British patroller and taken to one of the lower prison levels in Fort William where he was tortured for hours in hopes to a confession to a crime un-committed. Edina was with child and the baby had come early as a result of the traumatic ordeal. One morning, with no motivation of cause or reason, Ruaridh was released from the prison and sent back to his hamlet where he would be made to work to pay off the 'debt' the garrison commanders amassed during his care at the prison.</p><p>He returned a cripple in both body and spirit, and it was left to Edina to do the running of things and care- mostly alone- for their child. One by one, the other tenants migrated elsewhere, no longer desiring to be reminded of what had happened to one of their own, and unwilling to leave it to chance that one of them would be the next person to come to know a dreadful experience such as that. The most vital thing they were surviving on was their goat. It was, bleakly put, the only thing that didn't abandon them, didn't abandon her.</p><p>Claire elected to conducting the entire operation in French, only scribing her instructions in English so as not to disorient Edina and her husband any further. Ruaridh was a shy man beneath the sullen and shuttered composition and what ever the hell else had happened to him at Fort William ebbed just enough at his conscience to make him retreat even further into his broken misery.</p><p>He laid on his bed, holding his arm to his torso, not unlike how Edina cradled their babe close to her. When Claire attempted to stretch it, he let out a yelp of pain and surprise and she saw that the appendage was gravely mangled.</p><p>Additionally, Ruraidh had the pallor of a person phased in limbo- neither alive nor dead- neither breathless nor eager to breathe. She could see that he was a man who was naturally thin but the gauntness of his features appeared to be caused by improper dieting. He was nearly hollow beneath his sark.</p><p>After more observation, it made itself properly apparent that it was an ailment of the mind that inflamed the dilemma more than the injury sustained from torture at the prison. Claire didn't know how Highlanders took to propositions of sickness of the psyche. Might she suggest he was suffering from melancholia, a condition far from taboo in the other hemispheres of the earth, and the poor man may end up strapped to a table with a seven foot clammy priest sprinkling water over him and chanting epitaphs above his terror-stricken body.   </p><p>Best she apply alternate thinking, then.</p><p>Claire wrote out a schedule, suggesting to Edina to have Ruraidh sit in the main room of the hut more often, in front of the windows where he would be exposed to a healthy amount of sun each day. Over time, his mood would improve to where he didn't find it wholly unbearable to be alone with his thoughts. She suggested that if they owned a pipe, he could smoke grounded holy basil, rosemary, and yerba mate, healthy alternatives to the customarily recommended tobacco. And if Edina had a bonny voice, she should try to sing Gaelic folksongs about joy and bravery and adventure that would inspire vigor in Ruraidh's spirit. And to have him watch the baby more, and bond with his child to establish a tether to a world beyond suffering. She recommended salves and how to apply them in therapeutic motions where his pain was most urgent. There was little else that could be done, but if they could make progressive changes in those other areas of his life, they would reap many benefits.</p><p>"Once his spirit is healed, his body will be as well," Claire guaranteed her as they stepped out of the room, Edina shutting the bedroom door quietly.</p><p>"Ye truly are a wise woman," Edina crumpled a handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of her eyes, "Thank ye, Mistress Beauchamp, thank ye sae verra much."</p><p>"I'm not a wise woman," Claire gently laughed with deference.</p><p>"Aye ye are," Edina insisted through sniffles, "A wise woman doesna have to be Scottish, though they usually are. But ye speak in multiple tongues and ye speak of things I've never kent to be. Och! Why I, I dinna even ken where tae find yer herbs ye speak of for my Ruraidh. Or if I can afford them."</p><p>Claire reached out, placing a calming hand upon the woman's shoulder. "You can bill my surgery at Leoch. I'll be able to get you your herbs and you'll not have to worry one bit about it. Not until you're able to pay for the herbs all on your own. You saw that man behind Dougal Mackenzie? The large redheaded Fraser? I'm working closely with him and he's a very good man. He's doing what he can to make sure you Mackenzies don't have to struggle as much as you have been lately with your land. And as for your other business ventures, selling pottery and working as a seamstress? I'll bet you will see an upkick before you know it. Once the land starts turning over, everyone's spirits will be uplifted."</p><p>Her throat made a wretched sobbing noise.</p><p>"Ye dinna ken what this means, Mistress Beauchamp. I am so verra sorry for how I mistook yer intentions earlier wi' ye being a British woman. 'Tis like a bad charm. Ye must understand, the Sassenachs have been verra unkind to us. I've lost much of my family tae them. I've lost my friends. And now I have nearly lost my husband. The redcoats dinna relent no matter what they've taken. They're beasts roving and raging about the land wi' bellies that can never be full. And now I find that I'm asked to give more when I canna. I truly canna, Mistress."</p><p>"Are you so certain that Dougal won't have any pity at all?" It was an absurd question to ask. She'd seen how the man all but rained spit upon the woman in their Gaelic discussion earlier.</p><p>Edina went over to where she left her baby in what appeared to be the coziest corner in their abode. She stroked the top of its blond head, growing utterly silent save for her sorrowful sniffles.</p><p>"I am devoted to Himself and all that he may ask but..." her voice was quiet but heavy. "It's no' the Mackenzie way, ken? If we arena his clansmen who live in the castle or in the homes surrounding it, he willna send men for us should we be wrongly imprisoned. He willna send Leoch's lawyer to plead on our behalf when we face unjust taxation and levies from the British. Please, Mistress Beauchamp, yer Himself's healer. Ye have a trust and a bond wi' him and the War Chief. Do ye suppose ye could barter on our behalf? Use yer privileges wi' yer position to persuade the rigid Mackenzie to find another donor?"</p><p>"Edina..." Claire said, regret and sadness churning woefully inside her. "I'm not privileged on this soil. I am bound by Scottish law just as much as you are. And while I am in service to the Laird, to Leoch, and the Mackenzie people, I am nevertheless a 'Sassenach', therefore my appeals have little value to both the clan chief and war chief. I'm so sorry."</p><p>"B-but ye're bonny and proper. Ye must be of gentle rearing. Ye're fair eyed and honeyed of tongue. There must be something ye can do."</p><p>During her formal education she'd been taught that as a physician that one must constantly combat attachment to their patients. In their province of work they would regularly encounter tragedy, devastating stories, often death. But their job is to heal what they can and migrate to the next person in need of their specialty. They weren't supposed to become entrenched and overstep the bounds of necessity. It was integral to uphold this. Otherwise they would wear their souls down like bone upon bone without cartilage, and be unable to do what must be done.</p><p>Claire's very own conundrum was rooted in her empathy and how her actions blossomed from it. It was achingly hard to turn from those in need, even when she understood logically that there was little to be done. It was why even the most undeserving of men would always be at the mercy of her scalpel and needles. If something was broken- no matter who its broken bits belonged to- she always felt a calling, a determination, to fix it in whatever way she could. She knew this empathetic habit would come to nip her in the arse someday. But she couldn't dwell on that. Not now.</p><p>Closing up her medical box, which she wound up having no use for today, Claire addressed Edina.</p><p>"The only thing I can do is try to treat your family and restore your husband to reasonable health so that you, and your child, and your home, can stay upright. You must keep hope in sight always."</p><p>She fought to marshal her thoughts. Most certainly she tried. But the moment she thought about it, it came apart like yarn splitting when pulled. How often were things like this for the Highlanders? How could the Mackenzies not see after their people who resided in the outer regions? Were they truly so much less than a man that bore the crest and donned the broadsword? So much less than their elite collective of immediate relatives? These people were bound by blood no matter how long the river had run. She felt acid in her eyes as she stepped back out in the air and marched back to Dougal, who stood tall and proud and entitled while he waited for her return.</p><p>"Ye were almost out of time, Mistress. And why is Edina no' wi' ye?" he asked her in the rough disregarding manner he always tended to operate with.</p><p>
  <em>Stay out of it, Beauchamp.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Stay the bloody hell out of it, Beauchamp.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Oh for god's sake.</em>
</p><p>"In her home. Tending. Edina can't contribute a payment to the cause. Her husband is ill, her child is a newborn, and she's been managing on her own all this time," Claire answered tightly.</p><p>Dougal's fists clenched and she was nearly certain she could hear his volcanic thoughts. He was notoriously prone to anger. She heard many an outburst in various regions of the castle and she was none so eager to be the recipient of his ire but she couldn't allow Edina to be caught in the path of his fire either.</p><p>He plastered on that soulless smile he often selected and Claire's mouth fell open as she saw him stride sedately over to the small pen where the goat was lounging and untied its rope from its post. Some of the men made sounds of curiosity.</p><p>"What on earth are you doing?"</p><p>"They've a fat goat here who will make fine milk and cheese for our men on the journey back. And then we'll coconut it towards our credits when we return to Leoch," Dougal bustled the goat along, preparing to latch it to their wagon, which became fat with goods that other villagers gave them in exchange of credits. "No' that I've any reason to answer to ye."</p><p>Stricken by the image of Edina and her babe and her weak husband suffering any further hardship, Claire didn't feel herself move until she almost collided against Dougal's back. "You can't!' she blurted.</p><p>Dougal reared his head slowly. "What did ye say to me, ye Sassenach?"</p><p>Disinclined to back down now that she made her opposition a declaration, Claire licked her lips and repeated as though the highly esteemed War Chief were a daft child, "You can't. This family needs this goat. It's the only thing they've been able to depend on for months now."</p><p>She was not going to get on her knees and beg. Not before this man. But damn was she going to get her entreaties across one way or another. She couldn't, after hearing that woman's plight, not try to do something.</p><p>"I don't think this family can stand yet another foul act of cruelty," she muttered, eyes defiantly peering into Dougal's steely glare.</p><p>"'Tis the law of the clans, Mistress Beauchamp. Best ye no' try to go toe to toe wi' the head of Clan Mackenzie's militia if ye want to keep the head that rests upon yer emboldened shoulders."</p><p>"So you would establish more vigor in stealing a struggling woman's goat than you would deploying men to defend their people from the crimes of brutes dressed in red uniforms? Is this not the very act of those beastly cowards?"</p><p>She knew she had stepped too far and she felt her body constrict from head to toe in as the shadow of Dougal's bear paw-sized hand came down upon her. It was the last thing she saw before she wrung her eyes shut and sucked in a breath as she prepared for the assault.</p><p>The strike never came.</p><p>Instead, pine and sweat, a familiarly scented compound, filled her nostrils.</p><p>Claire peeled open her eyes and found Jamie's flaring turquoise eyes cast down upon her, large with panic and bright with frenzy. He was breathing heavily as both of his hands had gathered around her, shielding her from Dougal's wrath.</p><p>"Claire," he said, her name almost completely muffled by the whisper he delivered it with. His shoulders were pent, rising and falling with each breath he took. If Dougal was the sun, then Jamie was a cloud whose vastness drifted in front of it, descending a great blanket over the earth and chilling its skin. For a moment he looked as though he didn't know where he was. He blinked, disoriented, at Claire. It was however ephemeral.</p><p>Refilled with clarity, he turned back to Dougal who looked at both of them with enough rage to light the fuse of a ship's cannon. Claire hadn't the chance to register the other men's activity, for she was to engrossed in the fact that she was about to be struck and that Jamie intervened and held her in such a protective manner that she knew it made a grand statement to the others.</p><p>"There is nay need to land yer hand upon the lady," Jamie said loudly and cautiously, "Ye've had a bit to drink on the way here, no, Dougal? And we're all tired from our travels, including Mistress Claire. The lady's no' been out on the road like this in quite some time and she's feeling doo-lally, aye?" Jamie spun his ginger mop back to Claire, eyes still enlarged. Claire sure as hell never heard the word hell doo-lally before but she speculated its meaning and it wasn't altogether false. She nodded cooperatively. "But we shouldna take from those who cannae give. 'Twasn't my agreement wi' Colum when I proposed this expedition."</p><p> Jamie's hands slowly unwrapped from Claire and he took one small step back, still maintaining his barricade between her and his uncle.</p><p>"I gave my uncle my word that I would cover the remainder of the costs for the funds," Jamie continued, speaking with the steady control of a lion tamer, "And I give ye my word, uncle, that I have the means to cover the costs as ye see fit. I wouldna retreat on my word. Nor would I cause more strife in the midst of my pursuit for better times."</p><p>It was a very fair deal and Dougal knew this. His temper quelled to but a small bud of a flame. He let out a sharp and low laugh, bowing his head and shaking it slowly.</p><p>"Ye're a sleekit lad," he said to Jamie. "Normally I appreciate such attributes but no' when they're used against me. Ye've the look of the Mackenzies. Ye ought tae learn to act like one too."</p><p>He diverted his glower to Claire and she refortified her posture against its fervidness.</p><p>"And ye...ye're a Sassenach wench and a pain in the arse. Flap yer tongue at me that way again and I'll make sure ye spend the rest of yer life trying to remember what yer last meal tasted like."</p><p>In the end, the goat was returned to its pen.</p><p>Claire felt unrelenting judgment from the other men, understanding that hers and Jamie's display of rebellion under the guise of diplomacy would land in the mouths of many castledwellers once they reached Leoch's thresholds.</p><p>That night, a potent breeze settled in the atmosphere.</p><p>Camp was based at an outpost not far from the nearly-deserted village.</p><p>It was a dip in the land, a flat area intersecting between broad slopes of green earth. The familiar scent of burning wood quickly danced into the air and smoke hovered around the flames above which their meal roasted. The men were merry with each other, albeit tired, and clinked their horn cups and iron mugs together and poured drinks into each other's mouths, celebrating that tomorrow they would be well on their way back home to Leoch.</p><p>Claire took her roasted salmon and sat farthest from the men, and farthest from the warmth, up against a fallen oak where it appeared it was taken down by a cannon ball, its ends ugly and splintered. But it would do for the night. It was a solid and comforting surface against her spine and she ate her food quickly, eager to tuck her cold hands back into her skirt pockets.</p><p>She thought of the faces she saw over the weeks and the families who gave readily to Jamie's cause and some who were hesitant but refused to say no to Dougal. She thought of how she'd almost been beaten by the man and how swiftly Jamie pulled her away. She thought of how Ned Gowan was ordered to ride higher up near Dougal, removing an amiable presence from her midst, and she'd been saddled with the ill-fitting company of a clansman who when he wasn't leering at her, his rank body odor was offending her olfactory functions.</p><p>After she washed her meal down with the last of freshwater in her canteen, she laid on her side, retreating to the depths of her ponderings.</p><p>Thereafter, the only company left was the silence itself. Nearly everyone had fallen asleep. She was now surrounded under the blue-black sky by men who shuffled and turned endlessly in their rest. Many of whom snuggled as close to the fire as possibility would allow, mindful of the risk of catching the blaze but yearning for warmth.</p><p>The chill had become dreadful suddenly.</p><p>It was very rare an event that Claire fell ill. She managed to evade the minor cold for most of her life. But she was certain, with only a thin tartan sheet and her shawl she packed, that tomorrow would be the day that she woke with a cold. Or worse, an ear and throat infection.</p><p>It would be wiser to join the men and sleep nearer to the fire, but she outright refused to mingle with their company. Sighing with malcontent, she fussed with her inadequate materials and pressed her eyes shut, grasping for any semblance of sleep.</p><p>"Claire," a whisper forced her eyelids back open. She sat up, eyes adjusting in the dimness to the make out the figure before her.</p><p>"<em>Jamie?"</em> she called quietly.</p><p>"Aye," Jamie whispered. He made a good-humored Scottish noise and reached inside his tartan that was swathed around his shoulders and, like a jester pulling a coin from behind his ear, he unearthed another one just like it. "For ye."</p><p>"What?" she said, not willing to assume she heard correctly.</p><p>"It's colder than a kelpie's rump tonight," Jamie said. "I could see ye from the other side of the camp shivering like a wet pup, ye puir wee thing.."</p><p>Claire looked over at the expanse of men, their cacophony of snores and burps and flatulence mingling with the chirps of crickets and groans of frogs. She looked at Jamie and smiled, her arm reaching out to feel the wool, beautifully made and of a fine quality like she expected a clansman's tartan would be. A Fraser's tartan.</p><p>"I always pack an extra one for unpredictable times like this," Jamie explained. "I saw ye chose to be as far from the men as possible. And while I dinna fault ye one bit, it's dangerous to be so far from the fire, ye ken. And I dinna want ye rattling yerself to death."</p><p>Claire pulled his tartan around her shoulders, its effects instant.</p><p>"Won't you be cold yourself?"</p><p>"Nay, lass. One tartan's enough for me. I'm a walking furnace. Or so my sister says."</p><p>She rubbed the material in appreciating strokes, only regretting that it hadn't the lingering of Jamie's scent, having not been worn by him yet.</p><p>"Fraser colors look good on ye," Jamie told her smilingly. "Suits ye verra much."</p><p>Claire smirked, her cheeks burning. "That's good to know." </p><p>Jamie sighed and knelt down, levelling his body to hers which sat back up. His eyes moved over her tartan-covered figure like a jewelry appraiser, determining whether she was a sparkling diamond or an ordinary pebble. </p><p>"Bonny," he said as though he couldn't help his self. A sparkling diamond, he decided.</p><p>"Thank you for this. And for what you did for me earlier, Jamie," Claire brushed her fingers over his where it rest upon his knee, exposed from the edge of his kilt and naked underneath the pale light of the moon. It was noticeably warm and didn't want to draw her hand back from the territory it ventured into. "That was brave of you, standing up to your uncle like that on my behalf and Edina's."</p><p>Jamie swallowed an audible gulp and licked his lips.</p><p>"Weel, the truth of it is, I did it for ye more than her. It's no' in my nature to intervene wi' Mackenzie business. I wish to be neutral in the event of such matters. Dougal's right. It is the law of the clans when ye call upon yer tenants to give to a cause. Now how each clan exercises the law within their systems is up to their chieftain. Clan politics can be verra tricky. But.. I saw what it meant to ye, the welfare of that woman's family. And I wasnae going to let Dougal lay a hand on ye. Has he ever-"</p><p>"No," Claire quickly answered before the rest of the words could leave his mouth. She brushed his skin meaningfully. "God no. Not yet, at least."</p><p>"Not<em> ever</em>." Jamie said. "No' while I'm here. He nor anyone else." It was a vow spoken with so much purpose, it sent a tingle bursting from the base of her spine to every direction of her body.</p><p>Jamie's other hand appeared from under his tartan where he had bunched the two ends together to form a cloak against the cold air. It came down upon her hand, covering the entire appendage in the way she savored. He stroked each tendon was though he were making a study of her. She watched his lips purse slightly, an action that often preceded a question that was on his mind.</p><p>"Do ye mind, Claire, if I sleep near ye?" when she didn't answer in expected fashion, he swallowed and his eyebrows tensed.</p><p>"Well," Claire laughed at what she was about to say, "If you must sleep near me, you may. I don't mind at all, Jamie. But if I suspect that you're as inclined to rude flatulence in your sleep as these men are, I will not hesitate to kick you firmly on your bum."</p><p>Jamie snorted and shook his head, uncovering her hand and tucking it back into his tartan. "I can assure ye my wame is as heavy a sleeper as I. We'll no' trouble ye. I just feel sorry for any bastard that comes sniffing 'round and has to meet the sharp end of my dirk."</p><p>Claire's light hearted expression shifted and so did his. She grew up sleeping in male-populated encampments and learned how to handle harassment and uninvited associations. She never felt truly in danger sleeping among these men. But for Jamie, being the honorable Highlander he was, he wasn't accustomed to the arrangement. She was the only woman there and this was the first night since the commencement of this expedition that he'd been able to be this close to her. It dawned on her that was what he wanted all along, to watch over her during the night. Like an owl, a regal guardian of the darkness. She felt palpably warmed by this.</p><p>"You're a really good man. Dougal was wrong to expect you to behave like a Mackenzie," Claire said, her voice as soft as a murmur. "You're not just a Mackenzie. You're a Fraser too. You bear your father's side well."</p><p>She came up and laid her hand upon his face, stroking her thumb lightly against the underside of his jaw. The moonlight highlighted the slopes of his face and she allowed herself a transient graze over his beautiful features until her eyes landed on the small hollow beneath his cheekbones. She kissed his skin there, lips scraping lightly against the stubble. It was quick and chaste but it didn't escape her attention how her lips felt like they were on fire and through the lunar glow above them, she could see Jamie's face darken from the intimate gesture of affection.</p><p>"Goodnight, Jamie."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em><strong>Dear Father,</strong> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>My heart overflows with joy from the letter I received from you this morning. I am glad to report that I am in good health and agreeable spirits and though my fine bearings do falter from time to time it is of no great consequence or relation to anything other than that I miss home, I miss our farm, our tenants. I miss my charming nephew, my no less charming sister, I miss Ian, and of course you, Father. I intend to fill this page from front to back with my multitudes of inquiries about the running of the estate and answering your inquiries as well.</p><p>I trust Ian is assisting you with the finances and loggings. Please give him my profound regards for the help while I am away from Lallybroch for the time being. Does it feel terribly different without me at your side doing the runnings and books? Sometimes in my dreams I am pulverized by the pounds of books I have logged at Lallybroch. Ian is not accustomed to the rigors of this work so I do hope you are more forgiving with him than you were with me when you first taught me the trades.</p><p>How is Janet faring? It is presumed that the bairn has by come now. Was it a ghastly birth? I dread the news that it was. I prayed every week that she did not suffer as she did bearing wee Jamie. It is too soon for portraits but if perchance my time here extends past my initial estimates, might I trouble you to request that once my sister has healed, she may paint a portrait of the bairn? I wish to know all there is to know at the moment about my niece or nephew. Last week I had a dream that the bairn is a girl with raven hair and eyes of honey over charcoal like her mother and grandsire.</p><p>To satisfy your curiosity about the affairs at Castle Leoch, I will do my best to be thorough. The castle is massive beyond what one's mind can conceive. It would seem that no matter what point of earth you stand from you will always have a view of the stony fortress. For all that you have told me of Castle Leoch, you never once detailed its scale. Calling it a castle feels like a mistake that has existed for so long that it is pointless to take measures to correct. It is a fort above all else, with parapets the size of elephants and bastions that could hide one hundred waterhorses. Castle Beaufort always seemed too large for one swiney old fox but now I see why my grandsire encases himself with such space.</p><p>I do imagine Mother when I am here. It is a daily occurrence to be reminded that I bear her features while residing at the castle. The kitchen maids are older and remember her from when she was but a lass dawdling these halls that seem to be an endless stretch to an unfathomable destination. I confess it is a sore subject. I am not as stoic and forgiving as you might be were you in my place. How might you be, father? Could you truly bear it or is it a mere front for the sake of my mother's memory the manner by which she valued peace?</p><p>My uncles exceeded imagination. You have always spoken of them with palliating descriptions. Effectively and ineffectively you've communicated the natures of these men to me. I have never been capable of toeing the borders of neutral feeling as you have come to, of their betrayal to my mother and when I am in their presence I am reminded of it as a wee stone makes its presence known in the confines of your boot. Colum is a cripple but his bull-like spirit has proven it to be a minor deterrent to how he runs the estate. While Dougal is so full of pride it is little wonder he regards anything in his path in front of or behind him.</p><p>The land was in such a state when first I arrived. It still eludes me how they've managed during this time. The arrangements at Clan Fraser have been so ingrained in my being for all my life that I was rudely reminded of antiquated agricultural implementations still in practice throughout clan lands.</p><p>As agreed in the letters, Colum has given me absolute range as Master-of-Agriculture to repurpose the land and deploy his men as my will dictates. It is labor that is akin to ministry, suppose. The men lacked enlightenment and displayed opposition and displeasure to my suggestions. After my weeks of work, done shoulder-to-shoulder, I can sense the changes in attitude, the arousal of erudition.</p><p>My commands are followed with less protest and I have even been able to show the men how to work with mechanicals, once they could assure me that they grasped the rudiments of it. They lack the finesse I am used to witnessing but with little doubt they will adjust appropriately. You may be struck with curiosity as to how I managed that. I communicated with candor the dire state they were in and the risks associated with continuing to farm in elementary and detrimental practices.</p><p>I had to go on a tour with Dougal Mackenzie and a party of men to raise credits among Colum's tenants so that we could produce the materials needed. Naturally I contributed a fair sum. It was a direct and precise process. I sent commissions to the most capable smittys that Colum recommended and Murtagh and I oversaw the assemblage. We have been able to speed our work up by a quarter percentage. The soil retains more moisture now and we've begun seeding. It is within great hope that a beautiful harvest will be seen. I am certainly pleased to report this.</p><p>I know I do you proud in spirit, for I swagger about in my Fraser colors, a singularity among fields of Mackenzies, but in my actions I convey to the men that I am their equal, if not in blood then in fortitude.  </p><p>Perhaps the greatest surprise of all that has come my way while being here, I have made the companionship of a woman almost upon my immediate arrival. She is a remarkable woman, father. By all standards that existed before I met her, and standards I did not know of after. She is a skilled physician and an expert of herbs. She is in service to Clan Mackenzie and though it was Colum's wish for us to combine skills and apply them to the work I am assigned here for, we have found enjoyment in each other's company. We have a great amount in common. She is beautiful and I know you would be greatly entertained by her stories, wittiness, and intelligence. In express truth, I have never known that women like her existed. In fact I don't think they do, father. I think she is an exception of her kind, and every kind. There is more I wish to say but I fear I may run out of ink before I can successfully convey all the things about her.</p><p>I hope your health has not declined since last we spoke. If only it were possible to speed through time. The temporal realm is one I am grateful to. But it does not come without its impediments. It will be a considerable amount of time before you receive this letter and by then more will have changed. I suppose you were in the future and I was in the past when first you penned your letter. Now I am in the future and you are in the past. Let us make this a game of temporal voyages, shall we? It would make the distance a chance more bearable, and assuage the guilt I feel being away from home.</p><p>May the lord watch over you, Janet, Ian, and the wee bairns.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong><em>Tha goal agam ort, do mhac,</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong><em>James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser</em> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Castle Leoch came alive in a rather extraordinary way when it came time for festivities. It was as though every slab of stone in the walls, floors, and ceilings were beating like hearts, pumping vivacity into all who resided in its chambers. There was a palpable buoyancy surrounding everything, its energy descending upon its subject like a fog after rain.</p><p>The frigid halls felt like the inside of warm bread today. More torches were lit along the corridors, and at each intersection, tall lamps were erected and were lit so brightly, one might think that Colum managed to acquire glow from the very sun for his castle.</p><p>There was buzzing all about. Chatters of excitement could be heard just about everywhere you turned. Even in an empty room you could hear muffled echoes of activity from the outer reaches. Decorations were mounted and arrangements enhanced the features of the interior. Floors were waxed so that the wood no longer looked dull and surfaces were dusted and scrubbed clean of the grime that had built up over months of contact. Special furniture was unsheathed from the storage rooms and carried by servants down the passageways to the Great Hall where all attendees would be serviced.</p><p>Claire had only seen Leoch be overcome with animation like this less than a handful of times since she disembarked with her uncle. It was an energy she was mildly acquainted with; nothing that had come to be familiar to her as it was for the other castle residents, who all had natural designations and roles to fill without being subject to screechy instructions.</p><p>But it had a very infectious impact whether you wanted it to or not.</p><p>It was going to be a special night after all. Colum had invited two highly esteemed bards and summoned equally esteemed musicians to Castle Leoch. All of the clansmen and women were to wear their finest garments and fill the Great Hall to its brims. It was in honor of celebrating a new quarter for Clan Mackenzie.</p><p>This was a thrilling time for everyone, for bards were highly regarded throughout the Highlands, almost similarly to nobility, something of a celebrity they were. It was a great honor to behold, or so Claire had heard from the humdrum among the castle dwellers while she moved about, either being carried by the current of busybodies or being pulled in every direction she was summoned like children fighting over a ragdoll.</p><p>She couldn't mark at which precise moment she became an active participant in the preparations team. One moment she was packing away the linen strips she just disinfected and refilling her jar of leeches, the next she found herself straining as she helped a kitchen maid lift a bucket packed with salt to bring over to the large table where there were grotesque arrangements of raw meat ready to be chopped and seasoned and cooked slowly.</p><p>That was how she ended up receiving a firsthand experience of the hectic world inside the vast kitchen of Leoch. The fuss about the castle couldn't compare to the concentrated energy here. Claire felt like she were a physician in the middle of a battlefield, fighting to stay clearheaded and sew together flesh that had been ripped apart by shrapnel and swords. She was rather out of her depths. The women turned what was often presumed to be a mundane task befit of one's gender into a riveting culinary spectacle. The courses to be made were as followed- caithness goose, sheep broth, salted venison and cod, berry pies, and curdled milk pudding.</p><p>She was by no means skilled in cooking and flavoring, so she was ordered to work beside the younger kitchen maids to mash berries and boil them in sugar and water for the pie filling. That she could do perfectly well. She boiled things all the time.</p><p>The young ladies were thrilled to be tasked with baking. The workers at the castle had gotten the mill up and running again late last night and the gunk in the ovens were thoroughly excavated so that pastries and bread could be baked properly. No more raw dough in the middle of bannocks and bread, thank Christ.</p><p>One cook burst into a tune of merriment and soon everyone in the room partook. Claire didn't know a single word to the unfamiliar Highlander tune but she hummed the notes she found easy to go along with, arm winding in rhythmic cheerfulness as she mashed the berries into squelching puddles of jelly. It was pleasant until a screech cut through their simple melody.</p><p>"Mistress Claire, for goodness' sake!"</p><p>The voices in the kitchen fell into discordance and the singing broke apart.</p><p>Head snapping in the direction the voice came from, Claire saw Mrs. Fitz with her arms in the air as though she came to deliver news of a great terror. Her eyes, dark like raisins, were wide and alarmed. Mrs. Fitz's shrill voice could wake the dead and make them stand on attention.</p><p>"What ever on earth are ye in the kitchen for, lass? Ye're no' a maid. This is no' yer place. Ye take those bonny fingers oot of that bowl!""</p><p>"I'm perfectly fine-"</p><p>"Away ye step, lass!" Mrs. Fitz bustled her from the table, shooting glares at the ladies for ringing her in to help with work they were trained for and Claire was not. "What do ye even ken about Scottish recipes, Mistress Claire? Imagine ye muck up the food. Then who will get the blame? Naybody will think a Sassenach did the cooking. Nay- they'll blame me! Ye're shoulda be here when ye're supposed to be getting ready fer taenight! The rest of ye carry on!"</p><p>"And just who told you I was attending?" Claire asked after she was pushed out the kitchen back into the corridor which was surprisingly clear of traffic. She was breathless from the force Mrs. Fitz's hands put into her back.</p><p>"Dinna play dafty wi' me. Ye ken attendance is mandatory taenight and I've been looking for ye, looking to half the castle as though I'm off ma heid, only tae hear, 'Och, the Sassenach lassie's in the ketchen wi' the maids'. The last place I'd think to look for ye," Mrs. Fitz fussed chidingly. "All the other lads and lassies are getting their guid clothes together this moment and there's nae more time to lose. Fashing and busying over food instead of bathing and dressing... tcha! Did ye really think ye werena going to attend?  Is something amiss, lass? Are ye taken wi' fever?"</p><p>Claire gently swatted Mrs. Fitz's hand away as she stretched her stout body up to touch her forehead. "No. I only meant it in a manner of jest. Of course I will attend." She gave her a mollifying smile.</p><p>"Weel," Mrs. Fitz sighed, "We must get ye ready now if ye hope to present at the Great Hall wearing something other than this drab thing."</p><p>The drab thing in question was her plain brown dress, which Mrs. Fitz made no effort to hide her disapproval. Not that Claire had any plan of wearing something she'd worn all morning to the great banquet, but she could hardly look offended at the woman. "Nay, nay, we'll have ye fitted and measured and put ye in the most gorgeous cloths. Come along," she clasped a doughy hand around Claire's forearm and led her to the other end of the castle where her quarters were.</p><p>Claire was indelicately guided and shoved right into Mrs. Fitz's room and made to stand before a tall mirror where she got the first proper look at her self for the day. Her curls reminded her of depictions of Medusa in books she read, dark tresses slithering about of their own accord. She did look scruffy, she'd admit. The plain dress, which she wore on the basis of comfort rather than ostentation, did much to encourage that.</p><p>"Lady Leoch has me keep a chest here for seamstressing. She gives me fabrics and furs and I use some of my auld dresses to make fine pieces for the young ladies here. We'll get ye fitted suitably for tonight."</p><p>Mrs. Fitz ordered her to strip at once, quickly gathering up her stockings and boots and dress. She huffed at Claire's brassiere, finding the 'bedeviled contraption' a nuisance. In the Highlands, women wore and were expected to wear corsets.</p><p>That was not the way of dressing for a traveler who donned trousers during her excursions with her uncle. She had no use for corsets. They famously caused mobility and respiration complications and as a studied physician who knew the risks to the human anatomy, she staunchly refused to wear them. She already sacrificed her trousers for less offending dresses when she got here.</p><p>For hours, Claire was yanked and prodded, sheathed and unsheathed. Her neck ached and her feet felt like they were made of granite.  It was a torture that seemed unending and retribution for some forgotten sin she was sure she committed in the past. </p><p>When Mrs. Fitz twirled her around to face the mirror and behold her finished product, Claire's mouth gaped.</p><p>"There," Mrs. Fitz awed. Her hands were posed like an artist that had just laid the finishing touches to their mural. "Ye have the most graceful swanlike features, Mistress Claire. I thought blue would befit ye. And wi' yer hair done up like this- och- ye look as though ye're ascending from a pond. Wi' pretty flowers in yer midst."</p><p>She didn't know when the woman became such a poet, but she had by no means been wrong. Claire did look beautiful and elegant. It had been some time since she was done up in such a manner.</p><p>The style of her dress was positively Scottish. It was tartan from head to toe, the shade of blue was a memorable blue-green amalgamation that she'd seen in Jamie's eyes. The stitching wove together vertical lines of yellow and horizontal lines of orange, and a lighter baby blue, and a darker denim blue, and they intersected across the fabric like all tartan patterns did. White soft cottony ruffles dangled around her forearms, making her feel decorous.</p><p>Her skirts weren't overwhelming and billowing obtrusively. They were sensibly layered, no thicker than the wool density Claire transiently came to know when she'd been enveloped in the Fraser tartan that memorable night.</p><p>Upon her neck laid a bauble, white and pearlescent, and her ears donned matching stones. Her tumultuous curls were fashioned into an updo with a gold ribbon strewn into her bun, the extending laces tickling the nape of her neck, and Mrs. Fitz had selected a few strands to frame her face. She thought she looked beautiful. <em>Really</em> beautiful.</p><p>"Do ye like it?" Mrs. Fitz asked with a tremulous smile.</p><p>Claire realized she hadn't made a single utterance. Clamping her mouth closed, she nodded gratefully to the woman. "Thank you, Mrs. Fitz, I look-"</p><p>"Like ye'll no' have any trouble attracting a handsome clansman tonight," Mrs. Fitz interjected giddily.</p><p>At the mention of it, Claire lowered her head, seeking to hide her blush as a certain redhead materialized its fine Viking figure in her mind.</p><p>The entertainments bards offered and the opportunity to prance about in quality textiles and feast on succulent meats were all enticements that had light bearing on what made this night a special one for Claire. In fact, it was for one lone reason at all that she agreed to set aside her devoted evasions of dining with Clan Mackenzie and for once become involved with the exhilaration all around her.</p><p>It was for Jamie Fraser.</p><p>She was going to surprise him.</p><p>The decision came to her in the night last week while she was sprawled upon her bed sheets, drifting in her contemplative mood. The subject of her conscience had been none other than Jamie.</p><p>They were eating together earlier in her surgery that day, two warmed bowls of porridge and thin salty slices of ham, the castle had been quieter than a graveyard, for the earliest risers were the farmers, and the scraping of their utensils and huffing breaths consumed their ears. She was scarfing the remainders of her meal when he told her he would like her to join him at the Great Hall to dine when the bards came.</p><p>She lent him no immediate response to that- though she was sure the widening of her eyes and the massive gulp she took had been indicative enough- and he hadn't said anything further than that. He took her empty bowl from her and said he would see her in the field in an hour, and left her alone.  </p><p>Jamie always had a particular talent for rendering her speechless with no sign of effort or difficulty at all.</p><p>He never asked it of her before that moment. He knew perfectly well why he never saw her in the Great Hall.</p><p>But his proposition- or rather, expression of desire- had an air of inevitability about it, revealing to Claire that he'd been concealing it for a time. If he had been grappling with his nerves to make it known, he didn't show it. </p><p>She had spent the day in a mental combat of her own, picturing the way Jamie had looked up at her, his blue-green eyes glowing just beneath the nips of his red curls, and how his expression lacked any ostentatious declaration or chauvinistic demand. It was so bloody sincere, so simple.  </p><p>She considered her reasoning with intense detail only to realize that the mutuality between them made the complicating nature of things irrelevant. She'd decided that night that she would give Jamie what he wanted and she would keep it a secret for the rest of the days until the night of the banquet. </p><p>In the time they've known each other, Jamie had already done great things for her. Things that, when measured against all ill manner of thoughts and feelings she experienced while being at Leoch, had outweighed the strife and grief. She would do this for him. Not because she felt bound by obligation but, because she recognized that she wanted to.</p><p>It would be worth the trouble alone just for the look on his face when he saw her.</p><p>The flame beneath her cheeks spread out at the prospect.</p><p>"So, there <em>is</em> a lad ye've been set on," Mrs. Fitz said, nodding as a smile began to grow.</p><p>"No," Claire quickly answered despite the betrayal of her inconspicuously red cheeks. "No... I'm just thinking of something else."</p><p>"Oh aye, sure ye are," Mrs. Fitz's hands lightly rummaged over her, checking for any details she might have missed. "Ye ken...ye really are a beauty, Mistress. 'Tis a shame ye're no' marrit. I ken it's because ye're a traveler but weel- ye're no' going anywhere nae time soon. It's been a few years past that ye've been in Himself's employ. Sassenach ye may be but there's nothing wrong wi' courting a Scotsman. They're the best men to pick from. Strong, passionate, and of great health. Often good looking. Ye ought tae find yerself a husband. No' because ye need one. I ken ye're a most singular woman, Mistress Claire. But only that ye deserve it. Being alone is a verra sorry thing to be. Ye've been alone for a time, lass. So ye'd best hope that whoever this lad that ye claim ye arena set on is, takes notice of ye taenight. Although ye'll mebbe be gaining the attentions of all the clansmen once they see ye. Then he'll have nay choice but to return yer affections and lay claim to ye. After all, a lovely lass such as ye, if ye're set on him then he's surely set on ye. Mayhaps afore ye even had the chance to make that choice."</p><p>"Those are lovely words to share, Mrs. Fitz," Claire smiled, feeling fluttering in her belly. "Won't you be attending as well? Who is going to help you dress?"</p><p>"Och! No' tonight, I'm working the kitchens, ken? But ye'll be seeing ma darling granddaughter at the Hall tonight. Do give her a kiss for me."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>There were jitters moving in Claire's hands like insects crawling over a decaying fruit when the hour came. She rubbed her hands together, trying to squash the critter-like nerves as she walked. The flats she wore were ill-fitting and each step she took were sore reminders reverberating up her body. Tall woman that she was, there weren't many Mackenzie women that she could share shoes with. She'd been forced to scrunch her toes into shoes a half size too small for her.</p><p>She could contend with the nuisance of discomfort, though. Something important to her awaited her. Nerves and cramped feet could be damned right to hell. She drew nearer to the Great Hall where she knew everyone was already sat and feasting. She moved determinably against the unfamiliar weight of her skirt. The distinct noise of entertainment and chatter braced Claire.</p><p>She realized as she walked up those three steep steps to the platform and came before the archway of the Great Hall, that she didn't know where Jamie was sitting. She hadn't had the chance to ask him where he'd be dining, for she was careful to avoid him all day today, save for a minor interaction in the early morning as they passed each other on their way to their respective occupations.</p><p>A bit of the noise stuttered and stifled once her presence became known to the congregators of the Great Hall. Claire refused to allow it to intimidate her. She nodded her greetings to each passerby and elongated her neck to scan the tables for a ginger mop.</p><p>"Mistress Beauchamp!" the voice of Colum Mackenzie startled her, "Perhaps yer time here at Leoch has become so mundane that ye've forgotten yer manners. Will ye not greet yer Laird?"</p><p>He sat uppermost to the entrance, a position Claire thought was rather dangerous, as assassins or intruders could easily storm the entrance and slit his throat where he sat. Though she reckoned given the design of Leoch and the sizable militia of expertly trained Highlanders that occupied it that such a notion was a waste of concern. He was mightily protected.</p><p>Colum sat stiffly, draped in various furs. Most notably, auburn deerskin with ornamental raccoon tails sewn to the shoulders. It was an unsightly combination of fabric that flowed down to his mangled legs which were wrapped in bright white stockings.</p><p>Beside him sat his wife Letitia Mackenzie, a statuesque redheaded woman whose hair was more akin to ruby than amber. She wore a dress of indigo laced with bronze tassels. She was a woman of few words but her smile to Claire was an appreciating one. Besides her sat Hamish Mackenzie, whose head was the same saccharinely red color as his mother's, looking quite smart in his saffron dyed shirt with a satin flower pinned to his collar and his Mackenzie kilt.</p><p>"Forgive me, Colum," Claire said, gathering her skirts and bowing, "Mundanity isn't to blame at all. It's the infrequency of my being here that is the cause for this error in etiquette. That and a combination of distracted awe at how breathtaking the Great Hall looks tonight. You've outdone yourself." It wasn't an altogether lie, the Great Hall did look marvelous and ambient, but flattery was the easiest route to take when being forced to engage with someone you'd rather not.</p><p>"Not I, ye can thank my fine wife for the arrangements," Colum deferred to Letitia with a look of adoration that made Claire uncomfortable to witness.</p><p>"Good evening Lady Leoch," Claire said to her, bowing again. "And to you, young Hamish."</p><p>"Evening to ye, Mistress Beauchamp," the little lad hmmphed, more interested in his plate of venison than the spectacle laid out beyond his table. </p><p>"I trust that tonic is treating your legs well today?" Claire observed to Colum obligingly.</p><p>"Tonic?" Colum chuckled, "'Tis no' tonic that inspires my good spirits this evening. 'Tis the rhenish. Have yerself a cup." Colum flicked two fingers towards a server who came forth with a brass goblet and a glistening copper decanter. </p><p>Claire started. "Oh, I'd rather not-"</p><p>"My husband insists, Mistress Beauchamp," Letitia Mackenzie interfered.</p><p>Claire hid her grimace behind a sigh, hoping she wasn't making it too obvious that she was keen to be getting to their nephew. At least Dougal wasn't present at the table though the vacant seat to the left of Colum meant he was invited albeit present in a different part of the hall. Hopefully she would successfully avoid intersecting with him.</p><p>The rhenish churned intensely in her sternum and hovered in the pit of her belly as she continued her way down the aisles. Claire smacked her lips with appreciation for the oaky yet sweet flavor of the libation. She didn't care to be a recipient of Colum's kindness and the transience of it, but was admittedly grateful to have one of her hands occupied while she sought Jamie out. She'd otherwise pick her own skin apart with her fidgeting.</p><p>She could hear the violins and flutes overhead where the musicians sat in the balconies circling the Great Hall. It reminded her of a great theater she attended once, with lights funneling throughout the auditorium, and rows of seats filled with men and women fanning themselves as they waited in their cramped aisles for the show to begin. </p><p>Everyone's meals induced a mouthwatering response. The meats smelled so savory, its peppery scents constituting the atmosphere like a sheer film of musk upon the olfactory senses. The pastries and puddings were arranged in lovely combinations, and some of the pies had dollops of frosting on the crust. The kitchen maids had managed a superb outcome, all things considered. And there<em> were</em> a few things to consider given the agricultural changes that were underway. They surely had to find alternate ways to supplement the flavors of the meats and used pastries and whipped creams to suffice for the lack of variety in fruits for their desserts. </p><p><em>Nae bother</em>, she could hear Jamie say in the good-humored manner that he tended to address these things in, <em>All Scots need for a good time is a full belly and an empty flask.</em></p><p>There were indeed no signs of dissatisfaction among the attendees. The food and drink and decorations lining the multitudes of tables made for a perfect compound of happiness for the people of Leoch. They were huddled together in discussion or had their heads thrown back in belly filled laughs. There was a belonging among them that was so distinct to the naked eye. Claire momentarily felt like a child with their nose pressed to a shop window, eyes covetously watching the wooden dolls and boxes of marbles and other various glittering trinkets on display. </p><p>She felt a charge of disquiet as she realized that if she didn't find Jamie then she might not be able to find a seat at all, or worse, be made to sit next to unbecoming company until she eventually retired to her quarters after her tolerance ran its course. <em>Absolutely not</em>, she grunted beneath her breath.</p><p>To her good fortune, she did find Jamie and he was seated a fair distance from the hounding eyes of Colum and hopefully Dougal, whose location still eluded her. He was beside Murtagh, beneath a hanging basket of yellow and red hibiscus and long arms of leaves. </p><p>You would have to be blind to have missed him. He was a monument, after all, taller than every Mackenzie, she thought. His curls, always so wild and beautiful, were tamed over his head, its brilliant coils now smoothed by layers of brushstrokes and a light dab of wax to keep it in place. His tartan was strapped over his shoulder and fastened by his Fraser brooch. He wore a coat that was a rich verdant green, and a muslin was elegantly knotted around his neck and tucked beneath his collars.</p><p>He should have looked like a pompous dandy, abandoning his ruggish Highlander apparel for this. But he didn't. Not in the slightest. He looked so striking and princely that she suddenly felt as though the two of them, standing before each other in such fancy regalia, had been carved from the thick pages of a worn and forgotten fairytale novel. </p><p>She wouldn't mind being swept off her feet by him. He'd already done so in a figurative manner, after all.</p><p>He was taking a gulp from his horn mug when their eyes finally met. His ruddy brows shot up to the sky and his eyes enlarged. His hand seized around the handle of his mug and he choked, sputtering his drink before him.</p><p>His godfather made an agitated exclamation. "What the bluidy hell is wrong wi' ye! Almost knocked the drink oot of my hand, ye clumsy dolt!" his bushy eyebrows crinkled when he saw that his godson's eyes were fixed on Claire. "I see..." </p><p>She flashed an apologetic smile at Murtagh, but she couldn't withdraw her eyes from Jamie, her cheeks filling with a grin of unadulterated happiness.</p><p>"Claire-" Jamie recovered and said her name on a gulping breath. "I didna ken ye were going to come! Ye're here!" Some of his drink dribbled down his chin, shining on the tiny prickles of red hair there. He pawed it away with a deft swipe of his hand. His smile to her was equally exuberant as hers was to him.</p><p>"So I am."</p><p>Jamie stood, towering considerably, and gestured to the seating arrangements.</p><p>"Why did ye no tell me ye were coming?" he asked, "I tried to keep a seat vacant on account of chance but I wouldha saved ye a seat on our side had I known for sure that ye were set on attending."</p><p>"Is it a problem?" Claire became tentative, "If so, I don't want to turn it into a burden. I suppose I can just-"</p><p>"I dinna want ye sitting alone," Jamie firmed her and snuffed the tiny flame of doubt that she felt. He tapped his finger against his kilt as he surveyed the breath of the room before him. "We'll simply find someplace else to sit together."</p><p>Together. Her affection for him multiplied tenfold upon that instant. </p><p>"The Sassenach can take my place," Murtagh said suddenly, "I'm no' much for festivities. Ye'll have company tonight Jamie and it willna be I. Wi' the Sassenach sitting near ye, no one will trouble ye. I'll be taking ma plate wi' me, though."</p><p>Claire opened her mouth to make a remark but the man brushed past her grumblingly with his arms full of half eaten food before she could take a full breath.</p><p>Well good, she thought. She had no capacity for ill feeling towards the man, but he was an intractable obstruction. Ever since the weeks on the road with Jamie and the Mackenzie party, she felt the man's wariness grow from a notion to a palpable sensation.</p><p>Murtagh's disposition in her midst was one she couldn't ever hope to soften, but it was at the least devoid of the sinisterness she often encountered as a reaction to her Britishness. He <em>did</em> make his self scarce at least, which she supposed she could give thanks for. Even if it hadn't been on her behalf but for Jamie's and perhaps his.</p><p>"Not very different from our surgery and field brunches, do you think?" Claire gathered her skirts and placed one leg over the bench and her other leg followed before sitting down. She'd forgotten how favorable the Great Hall benches were to the creaky rotting ones in her surgery. </p><p>"Oh it's <em>verra</em> different," Jamie's retort elicited a laugh from her.</p><p>"How so? We've food. Benches. Dim lighting."</p><p>"But the food is better- for once," Jamie chuckled. "And the we've fine drink. And there's bonny music. And we're in the company of half the castle and we're both dressed like we're guests in His Majesty's court. And..."</p><p>"<em>And...?</em>" Claire giggled, urging him.</p><p>"And... a gathering in the Great Hall is more than just dinner wi' others. 'Tis where ye make it known who ye are, who yer people are."</p><p>"Oh, and these are your people, Mister Fraser?" Claire baited, sipping from her wine and moaning softly at the fine taste, "Mmm. You should try this rhenish. Your uncle offered it to me when I walked in." she handed her goblet to Jamie. "It's quite good."</p><p>Jamie didn't yet take the goblet from her. The calloused tips of his fingers rested against hers on the belly of the cup. The steel was cool and smooth, a sensorial contradiction to the rough warmth of his skin.</p><p>"They're no' my people. <em>Ye</em> are, Claire." The weight of the goblet slipped from her hand as he took it from her. His lips sealed around the rim of the cup as he tasted the drink. "The rhenish is verra good indeed." He added nonchalantly, as though his former remark hadn't ruptured all tact and chasteness from her spirit, plunging her into the depths of desire, need, and wanting.</p><p>They were thrust upon the farthest corner in the hall, sitting at the farthest end of the table. With the trails of flowers above them and the accompaniment of the shadow the convenient placement of light veiled them in, it would take a certain amount of curiosity to be able to make out what they were saying and doing. There were others sitting at their table, but they were so wholly engaged in prattling and sniggering among each other that if they were minding their conversation, they made an excellent display of surreptitiousness. If talk should ever get out, Claire would commend the gossipers.  </p><p>Claire licked her lips, brushing a hand against the nape of her head as she felt her heart rate surge.</p><p>"Are you pleased, though, Jamie? I wanted to surprise you." <em>To look nice for you,</em> she declined to add.</p><p>"I'm a bit more than pleased that ye've made my wish yer command. And ye look..." Jamie's torso grew as he took in a heavy breath and exhaled steadily. "I dinna ken if 'bonny' is sufficient enough to describe how ye look to me," He punctuated his words with a laugh of incredulity though his eyes simmered well enough with the meaning of what he felt looking at her.</p><p>"You've rendered me speechless yourself, Jamie," Claire replied almost breathlessly.</p><p>"Good," Jamie said, taking another swig of her rhenish. His eyes watched her with the utmost focus over the edge of the goblet. "I wanted ye to see me outside of my sark and vest for once."</p><p>"Careful, James Fraser," Claire said in mock warning. "Your words can be mistaken for bawdy talk and a fair lady such as myself is not to engage in such discourse."</p><p>"Ye and I ken weel enough ye're no' as fair as ye look. No wi' a tongue like that." </p><p>"And what do you know of my tongue, James Fraser?" Claire took her goblet back, putting her lips exactly where Jamie's had been. </p><p>"No' enough, I regret to say. Here," Jamie's right hand nudged his heaping plate of food in front of her. She noticed a ring on his pinky finger that she'd never seen before. It was a dark purple cabochon cut. Simple yet gorgeous on his finger. "Share my plate. Ye've come a bit late, just after the portionin'. I'll no' have ye starving tonight. Ye must be ravenous."</p><p>She <em>was</em> ravenous. But Jamie's food couldn't even hope to begin to quench that. </p><p>'Ye'll need to have energy for tonight," Jamie said deliberately. </p><p>'Whatever for?" Claire asked as she lifted a fork and gathered bits of meat. It was very delicious, albeit lukewarm in temperature now, and the surface was coated with honey and some other maple essence.  </p><p>"I've plans for ye."</p><p>Whatever those plans were, she hadn't prompted him to reveal them to her. Instead she found herself swept peacefully in a flourish right into the domain of Jamie's world. Words danced between them with chucklesome comments and coquettish sighs. When they weren't stuffing their faces, they were comparing the values of their alcohols. Jamie knew a considerable deal about libations of course, and he managed to make his education of why Scots preferred oak over any other woods to soak their whiskey in a great fascination.  </p><p>A bit of talk about the gardens and farms slithered in as well. It truly had felt like they were sealed in a separate realm. The presence of the others in the hall dissipated like the petals of a flower soaking in tea water. </p><p>With each subject change they slid an inch closer to each other. They drew closer and closer until she could feel the solidness of his knee pressed against hers through her skirts. </p><p>"Bidh a huile duine a ’gabhail do sheataichean!" A man, a herald, Claire assumed, shouted in rough Gaelic. It startled her so badly that she almost jumped out of her seat. What ever it was that he said, it stilled the entire room, and everyone had all but shucked their plates to the side and rose.</p><p>"What's happening?" Claire asked.</p><p>Jamie clasped his hand around hers and he towered up to his full height and pulled her along with him.</p><p>"We must find seats closer to the platform. The bards are about to perform. Ye dinnae want to miss this, lass." </p><p>He hadn't unfastened his hand from hers as he navigated her through the tight masses of people who all migrated to the north end of the hall. Their feet thudded in sloppy disharmony, Jamie's crossing of the room in broad strokes like a giant jaguar and Claire trying her best not to trip and fall as he for lack of better term dragged her behind him.</p><p>Jamie flashed her a crooked smile of apology when he took notice of her struggle. At first she didn't understand why he'd been rushing. Everyone had the same destination after all. She soonafter realized that there was a certain place Jamie wanted to sit. Neither too close to the front nor too close to the back and neither too far left nor too far right. They sat evenly at the middle, an imperfect albeit proper view of the staging ahead.</p><p>Naturally Colum and Letitia sat closest to the stage. Little Hamish sat criss crossed on the ground. And Claire could make out the glint of shiny skin atop Dougal's bald head where he was sitting to his brother's left. Of course the man magically reappeared for this.</p><p>A sardonic realization overcame her. The cause for his disappearance might have been because he was hidden in one of the stony corridors shagging some either opportunistic or equally lecherous kitchen maid. Dougal was a married man but not as god fearing as Colum. Infidelity was uppermost in his thoughts and concerns. He behaved like a whore, she thought drunkenly. </p><p>The bards, a stubby man named Simon MacEwan and a scrawny one named Graeme Fletcher took stage between a grand harp- rosewood she surmised based on the garnish and tint, and a bodhran with Celtic knotwork laced into the goatskin stretched over the wooden circular frame. Applause of anticipation streamed across the room.</p><p>"Since ye dinna have the Gaelic, I'll try my best to translate wi' the same thematic efficacy as the bards," Jamie's voice was low and rumbling.</p><p>Their hands were still joined. Claire knew well enough that she should disentangle their fingers since Jamie surely wouldn't, but she'd never felt a more comfortable more steadier solidity in her life than Jamie's hand upon hers. It was impossible not to be cognizant of how other women took notice of Jamie. No ambitious or sensible Mackenzie would marry a Fraser- not after what transpired between the two respective clan chiefs. But that couldn't possibly put a cork in one's sexual attraction to a man composed like Jamie Fraser.</p><p>And here Claire was, a Sassenach, dressed in a beautiful Scottish tartan dress and holding hands with Laird-to-be of Broch Tuarach. They were no longer in the generous shadow of the corner of the hall. All eyes could see. All ears could hear. What were they hiding? They hadn't been doing anything. </p><p>But they wanted to. Claire knew it. And she knew Jamie knew it. And just then she remembered Jamie saying that he had plans for her tonight. She ardently hoped that those plans included a release of all the tension that had stored up in their beings, leaving room for little else over the course of them knowing each other and growing close like two rogue daisies that had mushroomed through a crack of cobblestone over earth. </p><p>"Evening to the twa of ye'." A disturbance in none other than the form of Laoghaire plopped down next to Claire, and immediately their hands unraveled and went back to the pits of their laps. </p><p>"Good evening, Laoghaire," Claire smiled at the girl blandly. "Your grandmother informed me that you would be here tonight."</p><p>"Och? I didna see ye," Laoghaire answered, her tone as shallow as Claire's, "I didna have the mind to, seeing as ye're never here."</p><p>"That's what James," Claire granted herself internal adulation for not calling the man 'Jamie' in front of the girl, "Said to me earlier."</p><p>"Aye. We spoke earlier when the hall doors first opened did we no', James?" Laoghaire leaned past Claire, looking to Jamie with large eager eyes.</p><p>She was a pretty girl, Claire always thought so. Her blonde tresses reminded her of gold satin, and her eyes were a pale blue like light in the sky at the start of day, and as large as dials, and she had better teeth than most of the ladies here. When she became a woman she would be even more beautiful. But for the time being, her age and propensity for trouble was to her detriment. Claire didn't yet know how old Jamie was, but she recognized there was a difference between them in age as there was between him and herself. But they were suited agreeably for each other's company.</p><p>Laoghaire was- well- too much of a rascal. She wasn't formally a resident of Castle Leoch but she was a Mackenzie and she was frequently commissioned to the castle on account of her grandmother. To keep her out of her father's hands, Claire surmised, or to keep a close eye on the petulant and troublesome girl. </p><p>Claire felt an amalgamation of things towards the girl. Initially, she'd been indifferent albeit moved to pity for her presumed afflictions. But there were plenty of things about her that needed to be corrected. She was always clipped in her speech for once, possessed a terrible case of flightiness, rude, and poked her nose in everyone's business too often. And, Claire thought acerbically, she was in possession of a profound keenness for Jamie. She didn't appreciate that one bit.</p><p>At the moment, her hair was worn loose, a green lace band around her head, and wore a green dress to match. Her breasts, Claire noticed, were hiked up absurdly high with the assistance of her corset. She was clearly set in her intentions of getting a specific man's attention. She was an erratic but determined girl, Claire observed. </p><p>"Aye," Jamie affirmed, sparing a short lived look to the girl. "Weel enough. Ye must give yer grannie my thanks for the meal preparations. The recipe for the caithness goose was verra enjoyable. Right, Mistress Claire?"</p><p>Claire realized he put her on the spot and she forced her arm to stay still when it twitched with the instinct to nudge him disapprovingly. "Yes, it was very delicious, Laoghaire. Mrs. Fitz is a woman of many talents. Cooking, tending, a miraculous seamstress. Why, she fitted this beautiful dress for me."</p><p>Jamie made a surprised noise. "That's twice the thanks Mrs. Fitz'll be deserving of, then. For the food and for how lovely Mistress Claire looks tonight." His remark caused Laoghaire to narrow her eyes and purse her lips in irritation.</p><p>"Do ye no' think I look lovely as weel tonight, James?"</p><p>"Bonny," Jamie retorted so fast, Claire almost didn't catch it.</p><p>She changed her mind about Colum's earlier behavior and promptly wished she could request another cup of rhenish from him. Had someone lit more lamps in the moments just past? </p><p>On cue, the feather-light plucks of the harp began to dance in the air like dew dropping from the curved edge of a leaf after rainfall. Simon MacEwan sat on a stool, thighs parted and the bow of the harp pressed into his chest. A tame expression fell upon his features, looking awfully similar to paintings of the Virgin Mary. His mouth made a whistling shape as a low hum came from him. His voice echoed in tandem with the ambience. Beside him, Graeme Fletcher began to beat upon the bodhran with his left hand. He beat out a languorous rhythm, one solitary beat per drawn out moment. His expression contrasted Simon's, his features reflecting solitude. He opened his mouth and began to speak.</p><p>"Air Eilean Copinsay bha tuathanach a ’fuireach mar an aon chreutair daonna a bha a’ fuireach ann..."</p><p>Jamie's voice, low, strong, and concentrated, buzzed in Claire's ear.</p><p>"There lived a farmer on the Isle of Copinsay. He was the only human creature that dwelt on the land, and all he had for company was his sheep, his cattle, and his sows. He was a man who worked hard, a busy man, his days and nights spent on caring for his animals and field of grains and vegetables. Each harvest was loaded onto a rowboat and taken to the mainlands of Orkney where husbandless women and fatherless children would have need of it."</p><p>Claire felt her body relax, already drawn into the lore. Uncle Lamb, determinedly Catholic despite his line of work, would go about dissecting the story for some semblance of worth and scoff away at the absurdities of mystical creatures were he here. He would tell Claire that unless it were pertinent to archaeological research, she should cup her ears and turn away from such stories. </p><p>She didn't believe in spirits the way Highlanders did. But were Uncle Lamb watching over her right now, his disembodied form casting an invisible shadow overhead, he would be disappointed to know that her ears were very much peeled.</p><p>"One day the eve of Beltane, the farmer came to the edge of the cliff whereupon his house was docked, and imparted a prayer of thanks for the new season. He then prayed that his loneliness might be removed from him, for he had been despairing about it for a time now. That night, after another day of toiling and herding, the farmer returned to his home where he saw a beautiful naked creature stretched out at length upon his dining table."</p><p><em>Gun aodach</em> must have been the Gaelic meaning of nakedness, for the entire room hummed with mischief when Graeme said so. Colum and Letitia must not have found it to be impertinent for their young child to hear this sort of thing.</p><p>"The farmer thought it to be a woman, for the creature had breasts the color of lavender, with pearly lilac skin, and hair white as dove. Its legs were wound together into a tail with scallop shaped scales like a fish, silver with rainbow shimmers when the moonlight hit it. 'Twas a mermaiden. The farmer was alarmed until the mermaiden spoke. She told him that she was tired and in need of a warm supper. And the farmer, seein' as he was a man of hospitality in spite of not having had the company of any other soul in his home before, had obliged her."</p><p>Jamie spoke hushed but firmly. His voice had just about the same effect as laying one's head upon a goosefeathered pillow after a laborious day. He had the natural  gift almost all Scotsmen had. The gift of storytelling, and the gift of a voice that could lead you </p><p>"She had no desire for fish, nor seaweed, nor crab, for that was all she ate in her world in the sea. She told him if he fed her hog meat and good ale, she would give him her name. And so he fried her hog for supper and gave her his freshest pot of ale, and he came to learn that her name was Aoibheann. It means 'beautiful sheen' and the farmer thought it suited her."</p><p>Simon's fingers moved further up the harp, the notes changing, indicating a new path in the story. </p><p>"The mermaiden told the farmer she was weary of life in the ocean depths and she would like to bide in his home," Jamie kept up his perfect pace, leaving no detail hidden from Claire.</p><p>Claire caught Laoghaire cutting glances towards them, the girl torn between paying attention to Graeme's Gaelic and Jamie's translation. She ignored her and focused on Jamie.</p><p>"In exchange for his goodwill, she would stop the wolves from killing his sheep and hunt fish, seals, and otters, for him to sell in the villages in the mainland. Aiobheann and the farmer struck a bargain and that night, and every night thereafter, she stayed in the humble comforts of his home."</p><p>Aiobheann and the farmer began to feel their hearts incline towards one another. She, a maiden of the sea seeking to find a life away from one she'd always known and he, a lone habitant of a craggy grey island fearing a life that would end in desolation. She drove the wolves away from his herd as promised and he fed her hog and ale every night as promised. They were happy with their arrangement but two of them lamented their inability to be together.</p><p>For he was human and she was not. But something began to change. One morning, the farmer noticed that Aiobheann's legs were no longer that of a glittering fishtail's, but two slender legs of a woman. And her skin had paled from lavender to a light peach, like a newborn babe. And her hair had darkened from snow white to a hickory brown. This was good news for the two of them, for it meant they could marry and have children and fill the home with the life they both had a great desire for.</p><p>Claire felt stupidly awed by the freedom the farmer and mermaiden, now maiden, found together. It was such a silly story and still there was something alluring about it. Perhaps it was Jamie's relay to her, or the delicate plucks of the harp, or the tempo of the drum. Perhaps it was how everyone in the room sat with their heads inclined towards the bards, and how the hush hung among them ubiquitously, a shared enjoyment of the story and respect for the men telling it.  </p><p>"The eve came for them to ride into the mainland to find a priest to wed them. The farmer found her a beautiful dress and had packed salted hog for the journey just as he knew she would love. Their love hadn't tempered the fairness of their bargain at all. Aiobheann went out into the wildnerness and up the mountains to ward off the wolves from the farmer's defenseless stock of sheep."</p><p>Graeme began to beat his bodhran at a quicker pace, portending doom.  </p><p>"And what happened?" Claire asked a little too loudly. She received sharp glares and shushing sounds from some of the other listeners.</p><p>"She was killed by wolves. What she nor the farmer didna ken was that her fishtail had given her great magic and wi'out them, she was now only human like her farmer. She didna have the strength she needed to fight. She stood nae chance against the beasts. And the farmer couldna see her buriet, for they swallowed her whole. When he went out into the woods the next morning, all that was left of her was a wee pearly scale. The farmer was once more alone on the island."</p><p>"Oh god, Jamie," Claire whispered the same time the room sighed with disappointment. </p><p>"Aye. 'Tis a tragic ending," Jamie agreed, his voice tinted darkly with disapproval, "The bards usually pick something wi' a canty ending. Something meant to uplift the spirits of the castle, no' depress them. I dinna ken this story, nor do I wish to ponder upon its morals."</p><p>Good. Neither did she.</p><p>Servants walked down the aisles languidly, offering whiskey and wine to whomever had the desire for refreshment. Speak nothing of Colum's private stock, the local distillery still managed to produce delicious beverages that did the deed it was fermented for. Claire and Jamie found themselves nursing two mugs of whisky, its smokey aroma tickling and tantalizing their senses. </p><p>The next story was formatted in song and it was Simon's turn to regale the room. His throat vibrated with a far more enchanting tale about a waterhorse and his wife. And then another about Seonaidh, a water spirit, and fishermen from Shetland who made offerings to regain his favor after he had snatched the tide from them. The following story was a poem about a rebellious woman who had scorned a faerie and in turn lost consciousness. She wouldn't be revived unless she had been kissed by her one true love. Simon and Graeme weaved stories of love, adventure, and tragedy, around all who sat in the room, like rope linking a stream of posts upright upon the earth.</p><p>"Ehm," Laoghaire, who Claire had forgotten was sitting next to them, cleared her throat. "They say there'll be dancing after this. Do ye fancy a wee jig, James?"</p><p>An ineffable sort of silence exchanged between the sender and the targeted recipient. Claire was stationed betwixt Laoghaire and her object of affection and she could perfectly hear the ragged breathing of the girl, obviously impatient for a response, and the indifference that Jamie emanated. She bit her lip and turned her eyes to Jamie who had an expression on his face that was congruent with his undoubted thoughts. </p><p>"I'm afraid I'll be indisposed, lass." He said it without additional explanation. His entire frame was stiff like wood. It was so practiced that Claire pondered if he was in the habit of regularly rejecting women. She knew he must receive a surplus of attention from women, and tonight had been no exception, but she hadn't thought very much about his sexual or romantic proclivities before. And now she didn't want to.</p><p>If Jamie was trying to crush Laoghaire's spirit with certainty, it was working. Claire could see the tempo of her breathing rise. She wished sorely that the girl would be shrewd and find someplace else to sit. Jamie plainly had no interest in her and she was not only wasting her time but she was bringing humiliation upon herself unnecessarily. She at least deserved her dignitiy, chagrin or not. </p><p>Laoghaire must have understood Claire's message with the meaningful look she had cast to the girl, and with a distinct sigh, the blonde girl excused herself and went to fetch a servant for a dram..</p><p>Jamie leaned in, his lips nearly scraping the loose edge of her earlobe. "I didna think she'd leave us alone."</p><p>Claire couldn't help but snort.</p><p>"Aye weel, that's enough storytelling for the night. Come for a walk wi' me, then."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She hadn't realized how unpleasantly hot the castle had been until they stepped out in the navy depths of the night. With everyone concentrated in one locale and the millions of torches engirdling every inch of the room, Castle Leoch had been converted to a massive furnace for the night.</p><p>"Whoo," Claire exhaled when the welcomed coolness scraped across her skin. She touched the back of her hand to her forehead where she felt droplets of perspiration on the smooth bow of flesh.</p><p>It was quite the achievement to sweat like this while up in the Highlands. </p><p>She looked to Jamie with an arched eyebrow of consideration. </p><p>Certainly not without the efforts of physical exertion of some kinds, that is.</p><p>"I ken what ye mean," Jamie said, his voice caught in the waves of a low chuckle. Claire's second eyebrow rose on account of this, knowing with enough certainty that she hadn't said that out loud. </p><p>Jamie smirked obliviously and raised his fingers to the gold buttons on his velvet jade coat and peeled it off the broad mass of his shoulders. He folded it neatly over his forearm. "'Twas verra stuffy in there. The cool air is a blessing taenight." </p><p>It was a vast and empty night, the sky canvassed with deep blues stretching into black, and stars that were belted upon the expanse like speckles of melted gold. There was an earthy smell that rose from the soil and audible stirrings of nocturnal civilization. Claire peered down into the liquid of the drink in her occupied hand. She'd snuck just one more glass on the way out, decidedly fond of the flavor. The reflection of the moon shone in the gently swirling surface of her libation.</p><p>There were sentries guarding Leoch's border, and up along the parapets they could be seen, their dark tartans camouflaging them perfectly from an intended distance, Claire supposed.</p><p>Ostensibly, a few others had come out seeking the same reliefs they did, small pairs and trios clustered along the grass, and all quite drunk from the sound of their jolly singing and eruptions of laughter and how they leaned on each other for postural support. Gravity and drunkenness never did quite agree with each other.  </p><p>"Where on earth are you luring me to?" Claire asked, slinking her hand around Jamie's forearm so she didn't trip over the lumps of land. Jamie seemed to like that very much, for he glanced down at their joined arms and smiled.</p><p>"Socair sìos, mo nighean," his voice commanded in a language unknown to her. Its effects were altogether received and she let go of the tiniest volume of tension that was inside her. "'Tis only a walk. We can enjoy the rest of this night outside of the castle. And walk some of the drink off."</p><p>He smelled so good. There was an aromatic compound of pine and laddish simplicity, along with the sweet scent of honeysuckle on his clothing, emanating from him. She wanted to lay her head upon his shoulder. She wondered if it was as comfortable as it portended. Jamie was such a magnificently sized man. Every door frame he crossed, he had to kneel down considerably to pass through. Every time he stood among a gathering of people, he stood tallest, a conspicuous giant flame. Nonetheless, she felt as though he were a lean-to. There was a sturdiness to him that was so assuring. Why, she thought, if all the world were on fire it would take just for his presence alone to make her feel sheltered from the smoke and embers.</p><p>Perhaps it was his gentleness. There was a prevalence of carefulness about Jamie, but there was also something else there, levitating against the surface like fog behind a glass. </p><p>She knew him yet mystery remained clasped in the shadows he cast.</p><p>She craned her neck to look up at him, gazing upon his features which were relaxed in easy merriment. </p><p>A walk with him was nice indeed. Even if it were around the perimeters of Leoch. </p><p>"So ye've done it, lass," Jamie said, chucking softly, "Ye braved the terrors of the Great Hall of Castle Leoch. Ye sat among the grotesquely figured beasts of Clan Mackenzie. And ye made it oot wi'out a scar, let alone a wee scratch. How does it feel to have faced yer fears?"</p><p>Claire gasped in mock offense and squeezed his forearm. "I was <em>not</em> afraid to sit in the Great Hall. I'm simply a woman who enjoys my solitude and I don't care to subject myself to circumstantial judgment- benign or malignant." </p><p>"Ye sound like my godfather," Jamie snorted. Claire felt the noise rupture through his entire body.</p><p>"I should bloody hope not," Claire made a face. "Unlike your Mister Fitzgibbons-Fraser, I'm <em>very</em> sociable. I can enjoy the company of others. And I've been known to take control of a room or two. But I have the sense to not take leisure in places I'm not wanted." </p><p>"No' wanted?" Jamie looked down at her very seriously. "Did ye see the way the men were looking at ye tonight?"</p><p>The crunch of pebbles beneath their feet along the path they walked crinkled into the night. The path was well trodden, it being accustomed to seeing hoards of traffic in the earlier hours of the day. Looking ahead, Claire could see where it lead, inevitably guiding them around the broad shoulder of the castle. There were tall pikes lit aflame but no sentries posted on the ground here.</p><p>Jamie walked them until they found themselves under the absolute discretion of the vast spread of a rowan tree, grown upon this side of the castle.</p><p>In absolute candidness she hadn't seen the men looking at her at all. She understood quite well that she was a beautiful woman. Her parents had bestowed upon her their loftiness and swanlike resemblance. She was cognizant of her desirability. She'd had men before- in the past. They pursued her and she reciprocated the attentions when she wanted to. Here in the Highlands, it was different more or less. There were men that looked upon her with salacious greed in their eyes and others who weren't as forward but still handsome and robust and worth a daydream or two.</p><p>But despite the capacious room she had for it, sexual or romantic interest never took vivid form. It couldn't. She was under the umbrella of captivity and the grief over her uncle's passing had been an inhibitor to these things. Now that she really truly thought about it, she had become rather accustomed to the withdrawal and deprivation. Then <em>Jamie</em>. Her focus had been honed on him throughout the night as though she were stranded and he a clear beacon filling the horizon. Of bloody course she didn't notice the other men. They didn't matter to her.</p><p>She pressed her form stately into Jamie's side.</p><p>"Did you see the women?" she asked, her voice descending into honeyed inquisition.</p><p>The moon's luminousness sprinkled in zigzags of sheer white between the leaves above them. </p><p>She saw Jamie's eyes sweep across the muscle and bone of her face until they landed on her lips.</p><p>Kiss me, she thought, her eyes cast firmly on his lips as well. Kiss me before I fall to madness. </p><p>"Nay," Jamie said. He was suddenly quiet, quiet enough that she could hear the passage of each breath he took. "I didna. I only saw ye, Sassenach."</p><p>There it was again. That word. Again and again. He said it as though it had no malicious meaning, as though it possessed the same benevolence as 'lass'.</p><p>She noticed it each time he elected to the turn of phrase, though she had trained herself to feel a certain numbness to the word. Only tonight, she was full of wanting. Wanting for a man who wouldn't drop that term even now as she so clearly bore herself to him. Tonight, it mattered just as badly as it did the day they met on an incline of jagged stones and the uncouth word fell from his lips twice over.</p><p>It was like a sabre piercing through her body, iron meeting flesh and sinking through it like warm butter. A mark singed into the skin, sizzling upon impact and then puckering like the healed flesh of a branded cow.</p><p>"Do you say it to condemn me?" Claire asked, her torso contracting and expanding as she took deep breaths. She unfettered herself from Jamie and stared him ripely in his eyes.</p><p>"Begging yer pardon?" The consummate obliviousness on his face could almost inspire her to drop it. But she was determined to meet the other side of her inquisition. She could blame it on the vigor of Colum's liquor, which she realized latently she must have finished somewhere along their walk.  </p><p>"Why do you call me 'Sassenach', Jamie? It means outlander, I know. And to be one is looked down upon here. Viciously."</p><p>The first time she'd ever been called the word, it'd been like being jolted by lightning. Someone had shouted it in her face when they went to a market, spit particles and grime-encased teeth and all, causing her to jump with surprise. She had asked her uncle what the strange although plainly derogatory word meant. He reported that the Highlanders had a distrust and disdain for their kind for a number of reasons that had all began with the King of Briton. Their being British made them the King's people in a place where it wasn't a pretty thing to be; Colum's guests notwithstanding.</p><p>Claire felt the brisk memory of her initial encounter of the word pass through her, rubbing away the goosebumps beneath her incidentally tartan-tattered arms.</p><p>"I had hoped, after knowing you well enough and you myself, that you could see I'm more than the land I hail from. More than my Britishness and choice of speech," she couldn't stop talking, her frustration running through her like a chalice overflowed. "More than the things that make me different. Things I can't control. I had hoped you wouldn't be less inclined to use the name, that you would eventually drop the name. But you haven't. <em>Why</em>?" that last word had come out as a guttural noise. All Claire could do was stare tensely at Jamie, her mouth firmly glued shut as she finally allowed him room for a response.</p><p>Jamie's jaw clenched and his eyes diverted from her glare. Shame. Of bloody course.</p><p>Claire shook her head, "I'm an utter fool, aren't I, Jamie?"</p><p>His eyes sparked as they looked back at hers. Though she had detached herself from his body, there still remained little distance between them and Claire found that her feet were attached to the earth, rooted as strongly as the rowan tree was. Not for lack of trying. Something about Jamie's look and the bursting of her exclamaition made it impossible to budge any further.</p><p>"Claire..." her name was a crisp whisper between his lips. "Ye dinna understand-"</p><p>"Don't I? What is so hard to understand about a disgraceful word! Must I formally implore you not to use it when you call upon me?"</p><p>"Ye dinna understand where it's coming from, woman!" Jamie bit back.</p><p>Claire remained anchored to the ground though his reaction had sent flurries of sudden alarm through her.</p><p>He lost all tenderness as his eyebrows drew together and his turquoise eyes burned brightly. He now looked like a lion awoken from its sleep in the indigo night, muscles locked as he prowled for the disruptor of his peace. Had he meant her harm, she would be scared outright, because of his size, but it wasn't anger that he flared up in- at least, she didn't think it was. She blinked dumbly.  </p><p>"Would ye truly place me among the lowest common denominator like so?" he said. "Must ye insult my intelligence and affections that way? Have ever I shown ye on this day and every day afore it, that I thought less of ye, that I entertained degradation towards ye?"</p><p>"Well no-"</p><p>"Nay, ye'll let me do the talking now. I've heard yer anguished words now ye'll listen to mine," Jamie said.</p><p>Claire clamped her mouth shut, responding like a child being scolded. She furled her eyebrows together.</p><p>"When first I asked ye to the Great Hall, and ye didna say anything to me, no' a word about it, no' all week, I was afeart. Afeart that I caused ye great injury. That I'd been selfish to want ye there wi' me for just one night, to show ye how it isna sae bad to being among Scots, no matter the misgivings that lay between those of us who are Scottish and those that are British. Mayhaps I'd been selfish to want ye by my side though I shouldna. Mebbe 'tisn't what I should want. Mebbe I'd been too forward. Mebbe ye didna want the same. Only then," Jamie took a breath, laughing in a singular way that gave him reprieve from the tension corded around his body. "Then I saw ye standing afore me like the first sight of dawn after a long night. And I kent I was wrong to doubt it." </p><p><em>I did want it, Jamie, I enjoyed being in the Hall with you tonight,</em> she earnestly tried to say. But he had asked silence of her and seeing as she offended him greatly just now, she didn't want to commit any further transgressions, especially not while he was revealing things before her that made the walls of her heart tauten.</p><p>"I'm no' ashamed of ye. I've no' cause to condemn ye. I dinna think it possible- ever. I'm-" he paused, "Ye'll recall I told ye once that, we speak more freely wi' one another than a man does to the one closest to him. That... there are things I can only tell ye when they're meant to be heard. Weel, a nighean that time is now. I dinna hate yer being different. In fact, I dinna ken if I would feel what I do for ye if I took offense to what parts us from each other. So if ye dinna mind, <em>Sassenach</em>, I'll keep calling upon ye that way." </p><p>Jamie took one step closer to her, though, it could hardly be called a step, they'd been so near this entire time.</p><p>"Every time ye hear the word from my lips and mine alone, I mean to make ye ken that it means I want ye just as ye are, and I shall fear the day it ever changes about ye. Do ye hear me, Sassenach?"</p><p>It was the first time the word made Claire shiver for a reason other than revulsion. He baptized the word, undoing the denigration that belonged to it and giving it a cherishable meaning. Oh god, Beauchamp. Oh god you blasted fool.</p><p>Millions of thoughts roared across the pathways of her mind. Her heart was stampeding and Claire found that she was completely and utterly speechless, this time, entirely against her own volition. She blushed furiously, turning her face up at the large red Scot, caught between her internal condemnation for her brash presumptuousness and the urge to throw her arms around him. </p><p>She felt Jamie's large hands, rough as sandalwood yet warm like the belly of a pup, come upon her jaw until he was cradling her face, and walked them one step further into the sanctuary of the tree. A funnel of light came directly upon him and it was in that moment Claire noticed that there was a brown dot in his left eye just beneath his pupil, a stubborn splotch of melanin among blue-green swirls in his irises. The horn cup fell to the grassy ground, the thumping noise it made hardly discernable to her ears where blood was rushing.</p><p>"Do ye hear me, Claire?" the tenor of Jamie's voice was low and resonant.</p><p>Claire licked her lips. "I hear you, Jamie. I hear you perfectly. I'm sorry. You've given me a dear name to call upon you with. You've given me your horse. Your tartan. Your honesty. You've defended me against your uncle with your very body. You told me I was your people. And I- I was temperamental and mistaken. Terribly so. Please forgive me."</p><p>"There's nothing to forgive," Jamie's thumb brushed against her cheek, and a soothed feeling saturated her. He brushed his thumb back and forth over her skin, his ginger lashes now cinnamon in the dark, almost laying against his cheek as his eyes were cast down upon her. His finger moved to the fullness of her lips, still moistened from her tongue. She wondered if he could feel the passing of her breath on his finger and feel her own wanting, which stirred up quickly inside her as soon as they were touching again. He made a sound she never heard from him before. A strangled noise of yearning.</p><p>"May I kiss ye?" </p><p>Claire's own fingers gripped the collars of his dark vest. Her breath was coming out in rapid exhalations, feeling she might burst at the seams. </p><p>"Yes you bloody may kiss me you... you unbelievable Scot-" </p><p>His descent upon her mouth was gentle as a leaf falling yet hard as the ocean crashing against a boat.</p><p>"Oh god," Claire whispered. Forgetting his lapels, her fingers moved up his neck into the curls she'd dreamt many a night of tussling. His lips were soft, but his curls were ever softer. </p><p>Jamie deepened the kiss, a low noise humming in his throat as he unshackled himself from any sense of inhibition. His mouth moved harder against hers, wider, hungrier. They stood there with their limbs entwined, a vertical statue of two lovers beneath a rustling rowan, stealing each other's breaths like marauders. Claire responded to the force of his mouth with equal wanton and fervor, thanking the gracious lord above for how strong he'd made Jamie, that he held her so tightly or else she might crumble. </p><p>She felt the firm wet press of his tongue beckoning her, charming her own tongue like it were a serpent. His tongue filled her mouth and she moaned, images coursing through her mind of all the other delightful applications his tongue could make. Jamie had already proven he was a man of many skills. The deftness of his kissing had proven to be no less in the ranking of his proficiencies. </p><p>She was aroused completely, taken to the depths, and when she angled her hips forward, yearning to get impossibly closer to him, she could feel him, hard as iron, quirking against his kilt, right upon her bodice where her navel would be.</p><p>"Oh," she said, taking a necessary breath. Their mouths returned to each other less than a moment later, unwilling to be parted. </p><p>"Christ, Sassenach," Jamie grunted. The wind picked up, and he brought their bodies right up against the tree. Their mouths spoke a single language- of tongues, of sighing groans, of gentle pecks, and of rough devouring.</p><p>When she was a little girl, Uncle Lamb taught her about men named Copernicus, Galileo, Cassini, and Herschel, who'd discovered that man weren't alone in the universe, that there were other bodies like Earth, the Moon, and the Sun, that lived in the sky, beyond their human reaches.</p><p>She couldn't reconcile in her young mind what that meant. Earth was Earth, the Moon was the Moon, the Sun was the Sun, and that was that. Even as a ripened adult, she didn't dwell very much on astronomy, finding it a rather cumbersome ordeal to think about celestial bodies in the infinite sheet of space, and the placement of the earth among the cosmic traffic. </p><p>Up upon the body of the rowan tree, arms wrapped around Jamie, their mouths connected in fathomless passion, she finally understood what it meant to be one world existing among other planetary spheres. To be far beyond the grasps of earthliness. Together like this, they orbited far from their bodies, and farther from Leoch. </p><p>Their mouths began to separate with pained reluctance, and Claire disembarked from Jamie's lips with small pecks, each kiss growing fainter and fainter until finally they were parted. Their foreheads connected gently, their bodies shuddering in synchrony as they took in their first real breaths since before their lips met.</p><p>For moments they rubbed their foreheads against each other, panting, then sighing, then laughing lightly. Relief and warmth engulfed Claire's senses. Her fingers were still rowed between Jamie's curls and she cupped the warm base of his skull with fondness. His hands lay at her waist, squeezing in like disposition.</p><p>"I've wanted to do that for so long," Claire finally whispered.</p><p>"I told ye, lass," Jamie whispered back.</p><p>"Told me what?"</p><p>"Ye couldna be sae fair a lady wi' a tongue like that."</p><p>They both laughed mirthfully.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i hope you guys were as excited for claire and jamie's first kiss as i was to write it haha. i always wanted it to happen in the third chapter. </p><p>please let me know in the comments what you think or what your favorite parts were. i love reading and replying to your comments. thank you loads for reading. &lt;333</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. You Fit in My Hands</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i must apologize for how long its taken me to get this uploaded. there's a lot going on in my life right now, and obviously in the world, but i am committed to this story and i love knowing that there are readers who appreciate it. thank you guys as always for your awesome support and comments- especially those that highlight their favorite parts- and kudos, because they really are a beacon in these dark times. &lt;333</p><p>this chapter marks the beginning of sexually explicit content in the story so just be mindful when reading if necessary. </p><p>anywho, enough prologue babbling. happy reading, guys!!! :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Castle Leoch's walls held generations of secrets betwixt its ashlar stoned clutches. Jamie always had an intrinsic way of sensing the palpability of a place. It was impossible not to sense the memories whittled into time when standing in the measureless spans of the halls. How many doors had opened its shelter to things not meant to be seen or heard? How many doors had closed to guard what was meant to be unknown and unuttered? </p><p>Which grass stalks had grown from the footprints of furtiveness, seeds nourished by stealth and deception? How many had walked the roads to and from the castle, silently bearing the load of things so precious to them that its vitality could only be recognized in the permanence of quiet? People withered from age and became ghosts. But the remnants of their actions were felt in every room once the stillness settled, the same way one only noticed dust when it spun in a beam of sunlight in the golden hours of the day.</p><p>Jamie felt his mother sometimes when he walked past certain rooms. <em>Chan eil, Seamus</em>, he could feel the curl of her breath upon the shell of his ear telling him don't go there, don't turn that corner, don't wind that knob. Did she truly live each day here with joy? Had she seen the crumbs of secrecy scattered at every corner too? Certainly she had left her own behind. </p><p>Leoch was a fortress that had kept people out for so long. One must shudder to imagine what it kept in.</p><p>Ellen Mackenzie had braved an escape from the castle with Brian Fraser for the sake of love itself. She risked dignity, bloodshed, family, the comforts she'd known all her life, and her own birthright. Neither his mother nor father ever expressed regret or contempt for the way things had happened. But they hadn't portrayed unflagging pride either.</p><p>For so long, Castle Leoch was all but a myth with murkiness surrounding it. It had been more than just a place, just as a soul was more than the corporeal shell that it was tucked inside of. </p><p>And what of him?</p><p>Could this fortress contain what it was that Jamie discovered with the appointed healer of Leoch?</p><p>Claire may not have been a Mackenzie by blood or name, but by clan law and cultural jurisdiction of the Highlands, her permanent residency as Colum Mackenzie's guest- damn him to each circle of hell- made her Mackenzie property.</p><p>And he! A Fraser! There was no need to delve into the implications and complications associated with Jamie's surname in the Mackenzie threshold.</p><p>It would spark a blazing rage within the Clan Chief if he knew what had happened between his nephew and healer beneath the rustling rowan tree last night.</p><p>The thought obtruded his merriment after his first kiss with Claire when he'd gone to to retire to his quarters that night. The residue of whiskey, rhenish, salted goose, and Claire Beauchamp was still wet on his lips. But he struggled to keep his eyes closed, fidgeting and flopping about on his bedding, considerably taut with matters of lust, and wrestling with the woes of frustration.  </p><p>What they had done was wrong. </p><p>But he wanted to do it again.</p><p>He didn't think that he could be inhibited about it. No- he could not. It was indubitable. </p><p>The halls and rooms would have to make room for a new secret. When the time did come for his course on earth to pass, the certainty of his feelings would remain and haunt the next person in possession of uncanny senses. James Fraser fell in love here. And there was nothing to contest about it.</p><p>Divesting himself of his nerves for the night, his fluttering eyelids relaxed, and he dreamt of riding on the ivory pelt of a swan as large as a ship, navigating a quiet sea.   </p><p>The very next day Jamie rose early, hustling all the men together who weren't stumbling and hungover, with the intention of being distracted by labor.</p><p>Claire wasn't in the kitchen to sit among the workers and have breakfast. That meant that she wasn't coming to work the fields today, that she was very busy in her surgery. It wasn't difficult to conjure up the image of patients who felt ill from all the festivities. Leoch was vibrating last night, if such a thing were possible. It truly was a special time for the castle residents.</p><p>There was the chance that she was avoiding him. Jamie admitted that he'd been feeling some bashfulness at the prospect that he would see her so soon the next day. It was possible that she felt the same. She'd kissed him in such sensual candor, perhaps she regretted her forwardness? </p><p>It couldn't be so, he thought. She told him she was just as sick with the wanting as he. </p><p><em>Stop yer fashing ye blasted gomerel</em>, Jamie chided his self.</p><p>Doubt thereafter remained shy of his conscience and led the men out on their horses to the outer fields. He tilled and tilled and tilled, trying to focus on pushing rotted manure into the soil to marinate it. They started on a new patch of land this week, already having ploughed and seeded the prior territory. The manure had been compounded from the horses, sheep, and cattle and allowed to rot for a few weeks until they were ready to be packed into the dirt. It was neither a pretty sight nor smell but it did soften the soil and enrich it with nutrients, along with steadily re-introducing fertility to the soil and eventually attracting earthworms that would organize their own wee composting system beneath the earth.</p><p>Jamie remained as silent as stone as Murtagh gave out orders to the other men.</p><p>He knew his godfather must've thought that he'd been afflicted. And he was, in a manner.</p><p>He couldn't stop thinking about Claire, nor the press of her sumptuous lips against his, nor the way her laugh was the sweetest thing he'd ever heard, nor the delicate scrape of her soft curls upon his skin whenever she was close. How could one exist in ease when their conscience was consumed with matters of the heart? How had his father done it? How had his mother? </p><p>Jamie turned his face up to the silver skies and sighed. The air had a moist pressure to it, and it smelled deeply of nickel. The smell of the earth beneath him was both of rank dung and exposed soil. The soil had the same metallic scent to it as the air above. There was very little wind throughout the day. No hope of pushing those cloudy masses elsewhere then.</p><p>"Goistidh," Jamie called out. Murtagh swept his dark long hair from his forehead to get a clear look at his godson.</p><p>"Aye?" </p><p>"Heavy rain's coming. Have we brought any sheets wi' us?"</p><p>"Aye we have," Murtagh affirmed, looking up at the sky and agreeing that it would rain soon. "I'll have Willie and some of the MacIntyres fetch a few yards of it from the wagon." </p><p>Rain was good for the new crops they planted to the north of them, but not for the land they were working now. The manure and soil needed to be compressed for a duration of weeks. Wet manure would be of no use to them, but they were in the heart of Spring, a favored time for showers and rainstorms.</p><p>The sheets Jamie referred to were thick blankets of rope and sackcloth that were quilted together by the finest tapestry artists in Broch Tuarach. The fibers were coated on one side with a lacquer that prevented soaking and on the other side, it was porous and absorbent, perfect for the oncoming rainfall.</p><p>Quickly, the men finished working and the sheets were spread out over the tilled land when they were done. They managed to make good time today considering their numbers had dwindled to less than half the usual attendance. It was hard to boost a robust working morale after last night's celebrations. Even Jamie's mind had been occupied with other things. But they'd done what they could nonetheless. </p><p>They rode back to the castle in dozens, the wagon wheels creaking as the goods were jostled back and forth over the hilly earth, and the sky began sprinkling pellets of rain down on all the men.</p><p>Mrs. Fitz was waiting as always with a warm bowl of porridge and peppered pork sausages and hot tea for the men's troubles. After they filled their bellies, she made them scrub the dirt and foul scent of cattle shite off their bodies. A maid came to collect their soiled tartans and sarks for laundering. </p><p>Jamie spent a little more time to his self in his room, however. He pleated a fresh kilt around his hips and slipped on a new pair of socks and boots. When he observed his reflection in the mirror, he obligatorily ruffled his copper curls and smoothed his hands carefully over the folds of his vest. It wasn't in his nature to care excessively about his appearance- pampering was considered a thing only lassies and dandies did -but perhaps there was substance to the practice.</p><p>He was setting to see Claire to speak to her formally on what they did last night and he didn't want to come to her in any shabby sort of manner.</p><p>After all... he'd seen the distinguished look in her eyes when she saw him in clothes that weren't covered in muck and grass stains. It made him every bit prideful and well- he wanted to look pristine and proper for her again.</p><p>Since she hadn't been seen anywhere near the kitchens when they returned from the fields, he supposed she was still indisposed with her patients.</p><p><em>Damn ye, woman, </em>he thought<em>, Have ye the sense to eat?</em></p><p>He asked one of the kitchen maids to round up a thin slices of ham, a large cube of cheese, and biscuits and bring it to his door.</p><p>It might be awkward with the patients in the room, but he would bide until they could finally have privacy.</p><p>The food was given to him in a neatly wrapped bundle and Jamie tucked a conveniently small flask into his sporran.</p><p>On his path through the corridors that would govern him to Claire's surgery, he encountered his uncle Dougal who appeared to be leaving from the precise direction that he was heading.</p><p>Jamie marshalled his expression to neutrality, a skill inherited from his father who could masquerade anything behind smooth blankness.</p><p>Dougal's silver-blue eyes were pointed at Jamie, a indecipherable melding of thoughts brewing in them. He was moving like he was in a hurry, and his face looked to be recovering from an angry outburst, his skin shiny and pink from forehead down. He looked wild, as though he needed to pummel something.</p><p>They uttered nothing to each other when they passed, and Jamie's fist clenched of its own volition as he wondered if Dougal had done something to Claire.</p><p>Heart thumping, he hastily ventured until the ground below his boots lost its smoothness and the familiar cobblestone pathway bubbled under his feet. He saw that the black iron door to her surgery was half cast and an orange glow from the lamps with spilled out upon the floor and illuminated the walls hazily. </p><p>When he stepped in and saw her, his heartbeat was tempered. Claire appeared unharmed, leaning forward and occupied with a young patient who sat in her examination station, as Claire liked to put it. </p><p>The patient could be no more than a wee lad of thirteen, and he was wincing and whimpering, no doubt in too mickle a deal of pain to hide his sorrows from the Mistress Beauchamp. From the look of things, he'd broken his arm and he had a busted lip, the split red and swollen, perfectly visible from where Jamie stood. When had such an injury occurred? He hadn't heard anything about a stramash in the courtyard where the lads usually played roughly.</p><p>Claire was speaking to the boy, her movements careful and elegant as she wrapped linen around the splint that supported his forearm where the bone had split. The boy's cheeks were streaked with tears, and Claire interrupted her ministrations to go to one of shelves in the room and procure a small cloth to dab his face with.</p><p>"You're not to get this wet," she spoke with firmness to get through the boy's whines to his head. "You'll end up irritating your skin and giving yourself further discomfort. Don't get any dirt or any other sort of debris in this either. That means no more rough housing with the other boys or the men here until you're properly healed. Am I understood?"</p><p>"Aye, Mistress Beauchamp," the boy blubbered. Jamie doubted the lad would commit any of what she instructed to memory.</p><p>Claire resumed her wrapping. "If you should at some point feel itching or any other irritation, you're to report to my surgery promptly so I can properly relieve you. If you so much as shove a stick down your cast you will regret it immediately. And we don't want that, do we, boy?"</p><p>"Nay, Mistress Beauchamp."</p><p>It was apparent that neither of them were privy to him standing in the entrance way. Jamie savored the viewpoint he had. He felt a particular pleasure watching Claire while she was physicking. He'd never known how someone could be so fierce and stern so concerned and gentle at the same time. It was a marvelous juxtaposition. </p><p>Against his intent, Jamie let out an appreciative snort. The boy looked to him immediately, startled. Now cognizant that there was another male in the room, he ceased his sniffling right away, wiping at his nose with his uninjured arm.</p><p>"What's happened to ye, lad?" Jamie asked aloud to make up for his blunder.</p><p>Claire's eyes traveled to where he stood. The indentation between her eyebrows that were pinched from focus smoothed away as she saw him. She smiled heartedly at him and he to her.</p><p>"A game of shinty, sir," the boy answered, shifting uncomfortably in his examination seat, "An accident."</p><p>"Hardly an accident," Claire interjected. An array of dark curls bounced as she shook her head disapprovingly. "The boys were playing amongst themselves, where he earned himself a busted lip, but then things escalated when your uncle decided to 'show the young lads of Leoch how it's done'. Tossed the boy clean over his shoulder and broke his ulna bone, along with some nasty muscle tearing in his shoulder. Foolish. The man is as large as a bear what was he doing, tussling with a scrawny child..."</p><p>Jamie pursed his lips, thinking of all the times at Lalllybroch that the older men had engaged with the younger lads in a round of shinty. Of course, restraint was meant to employed when the wee'ans are involved. Dougal didn't give the impression that he was the sort of man to be lenient in any realm of competition. He was large, well muscled despite his age, and had the energy of a wild animal. A child was no match for even a quarter of his stamina.</p><p>He began to ask Claire if she'd scolded his uncle in the irascible way he came to recognize that she preferred- it would at the least explain his demeanor when they had passed each other in the corridor- but he didn't want to chance insulting the War Chief in the presence of the boy.</p><p>"I'll leave you with a prescription for herbs that you'll have your grandfather put in your tea. It'll help you cope better with the pain. You'll use a peppermint and beeswax balm for the inflammation like I showed you before. Now..." Claire's nimble fingers worked as they tied the ends of the linen into a sturdy knot. "Gently move your arm for me, please."</p><p>The boy did as he was told and Claire let out a sound that conveyed that she was pleased with her handiwork. She moved to her desk where there were glass jars neatly arranged with medicines and penned some words down on paper, leaving the boy with instructions and a small purse to carry the herbs and balm she prescribed to him.</p><p>The boy stood up, groaning reservedly and gathering his things with one arm.</p><p>"Thank ye for yer healing, Mistress Beauchamp. I ne'er kent a Sassenach that was a witch afore taeday," the lad bowed respectfully before her despite Claire's grimace at him calling her a witch. "Och, or mebbe ye're a faerie. I dinna ken forbye..."</p><p>Claire nodded, doubly perplexed, and wished him to be on his way.</p><p>"Sir," the lad said to Jamie as he stepped aside to let him pass.</p><p>Claire followed behind him, the pads of her shoes on the coarse ground scraping lightly as she went and pressed the entrance door shut.</p><p>It was the faintest click you could ever hear, yet it felt as deafening standing beside a church bell as it bonged. It made Jamie's ears ring. A shut door meant no more visitors were permitted. </p><p>"Good evening, Jamie," Claire's voice was quiet and when she turned around slowly to face him, he could see that she was already breathless. </p><p>"Evening to ye, Sassenach," Jamie's voice was low and sharp as raw gravel.</p><p>He came here to be clear of thought and level of mind. He should know by now that there's no such thing when he's near her. There was only her, and the ache for her in absoluteness. </p><p>He knew from how her crystal blue eyes were radiating that the same thoughts were uppermost in their minds. He was never a brute before in his life. But she looked so bonny in her white cotton smock with her defiant curls hanging around her crown, too stubborn to stay in the ponytail that she tried to force her hair into. He surrendered to action first, crossing over to her in one wide step and claiming her mouth. </p><p>"Jamie," Claire whispered his name and kissed him more urgently. Her delicate fingers traced the slope of his jaw and she separated their mouths to pepper kisses upon his cheeks, nose, and chin. She planted her lips firmly back on his lips and he relished in the warm pressure of her mouth over his. Already, his tongue sought hers, but she dragged her bottom lip down to his jaw over his neck. </p><p>She brushed her knuckles against his chin to kiss his throat soundly and the heat of her breath on his skin went straight to his groin. He felt like a wee lad again, his cock jumping and sprouting at the slightest stimuli. He'd never felt it this badly before, though. This was something else.</p><p>Unable to help himself, he clutched at her waist, fingers furrowing the soft material of her dress, a despicably thin barrier to the smooth ivory skin that he only dreamt of lying beneath. It would've taken but one swift motion to ruck up her skirts and- </p><p><em>O Dhia</em>, Jamie prayed for restraint. </p><p>Hand pressing to the base of her neck, he gently disrupted her maneuverings and took a deep breath. His heart was fluttering something mad like the wings of a feral dragon.</p><p>"Do you want me, Jamie?" came Claire's voice. </p><p>Jamie's eyes widened, staring clearly into her bonny blues. </p><p>"Do ye ask me this out of trickery?" he said in disbelief, "Because if so-"</p><p>"Why did you stop kissing me?" she demanding, nails raking the material over his breast, making it evident that she desired more. Was she always such an impudent greedy wee thing?  </p><p>Tremulously, Jamie tucked a loose coil of hair behind the white exterior of her ear. His thumb moved appreciatively over the soft curve of skin there.  </p><p>"I'm sorry, lass," he murmured, smiling ruefully.</p><p>"For kissing me?" her eyebrows curled upwards.</p><p>"Och- Christ no! No' that. I could never regret kenning the feel of yer lips, Sassenach," he brushed his lips over hers for emphasis. "I'm sorry that we must keep this between us." </p><p>Claire's arms relaxed and slid down from his body and it took everything from Jamie not to beg her to touch him like so again.</p><p>"I didna come here to ravage ye," he professed. "No' to say it's far from my mind after ye kissed me like that."</p><p>That earned him a small giggle from Claire, her cheeks round and pink and beautiful. "I believe it was you who kissed me first. Same as last night, Fraser." </p><p>Jamie's countenance and mood sobered up at the mention of it. Gingerly, he reached down and grasped Claire's hand, the very instruments he'd just seen nursing someone to health now reminding him of a string of fine pearls. He squeezed her hand in his and led her to the benches beneath the low windows where they enjoyed sitting together. </p><p>"Come sit wi' me, a nighean. We must speak."</p><p>The rainfall outside had grown heavier, and the sounds of the droplets pouring from the sky reminded Jamie of the sound of rice grains being emptied from a sack. Pellets of rain beat against the window in rhythmic chaos, and with grey coating the skies, the surgery was dimmer now. </p><p>They faced one another on the benches, knees pressed together through their clothes, no longer pretending to be tactful around each other like they had before.</p><p>Jamie's hands were so large compared to Claire's, it made him blush. In all honesty, he liked that very much about them. His largeness had always presented some obstacle that he had to flexibly navigate through. He was often conscious of every object, every doorway, every person. With Claire it was like...well... it was like their opposite proportions matched perfectly when fitted together. Both her hands were piled together in her lap as she looked at him wonderingly, and he covered them with a single palm.</p><p>It was easier to speak to her when they were touching. </p><p>"I do want ye, Sassenach," Jamie said. "More than I've ever wanted anything in my life. And I'm willing to be wi' ye in what ever way that I can. Are ye?" </p><p>Claire's thumb flexed and traced the underside of his palm, and that feeling, a growing familiar spark that he felt each time their fingers touched, shot through his senses. Her bosom swelled as she took a deep breath.</p><p>"Yes," she said. "I want you too. And I'm willing, Jamie."</p><p>"Then we must be discreet about it," Jamie nodded. "For yer sake and for my own. Colum is a jealous man. Everything I've kent about him afore I met him, and everything I ken about him now in how he's treated ye since came through these waters has shown me as much. He puts on a pretense of tenderness towards our kinship around me. But I'm a born and bred Fraser. And ye're the British healer for the Mackenzies. Ye understand my meaning, lass?"</p><p>She nodded, her head tilted as she listened to him, her eyes careful and considerate. "I know there's bad blood between the Fraser and Mackenzie clans after what happened with your parents."</p><p>"'Tis no' only that," Jamie continued, "When ye're a lass in a clan, ye canna engage in courtship wi' another man wi'out permission from yer laird and chieftain. If ye did, ye could be taken to the hall or the courtyard and be beaten sore. I couldna e'er ask Colum for permission to court ye. He'd no' only deny it, he'd think me to be traitorous, preying on the women of Clan Mackenzie and ye- an immoral straggling trollop!"</p><p>"Immoral?" Claire's face  was a transparent gateway to her thoughts. "If that isn't the most loaded crock of shit I've ever heard- I know your uncle Dougal ploughed through almost every single one of Mrs. Fitz's kitchen maids. It's only a miracle he hasn't gotten one of them with child yet. And he's married!"</p><p>"Aye, my uncle is a brute and I'm nay proud to call him kin. But physical relations are one thing," Jamie brushed his thumb over Claire's knuckles meaningfully, hoping to calm her inflamed feelings. "A passion between a man and a woman is another. Claire, if I only wanted to lie wi' ye... weel I suppose I'd bed ye and be done wi' it. But I dinna want..just...that.. I want to be wi' ye as a man is wi' a woman dear to him. And I want ye to be wi' me all the same."</p><p>Claire leaned forward, the brown patches of freckles of her face seemingly luminous. She kissed him sweetly to affirm her agreement.</p><p>"It won't be easy, though." she sighed. "Your godfather for one plainly doesn't like me. Nor does he approve of our closeness as it is."</p><p>"Ye'll let me handle my godfather," Jamie smirked. "Murtagh willna trouble us so long as I ask for his distance and discretion. I've more concern for my uncles. If either of them, or any other Mackenzie, were ever to find out- ye could lose everything ye have left here and I- I could return to Lallybroch a disappointment to my father for inciting the wrath of Clan Mackenzie upon Clan Fraser. See, Sassenach, ye must understand, I didna come here to find a lassie. Twasn't in my plans. I could've never foresaw ye. I was drawn to ye the moment we met but I didna expect that ye'd want me too."</p><p>"How couldn't you?" Claire's face was stark with incredulity. "I mean... I thought I was obvious." </p><p>"I'm daft sometimes, ye'll ken," Jamie blushed.    </p><p>She threw her head back, curls springing as she did so, and laughed, "Bloody Scot!"</p><p>"Bluidy Sassenach," he retorted.</p><p>The quiet suddenly fogged the room. All there was to hear was the clod of the rain outside, sounding sharp as stone. </p><p>Jamie looked at Claire, feeling time lull itself away, watching how her features were outlined with silver from the light in the windows. </p><p>"It's dangerous, what I ask of ye..."  </p><p>"I'm putting you in danger as well," Claire interjected. "If it's the only way we can be together because of these damned clan laws then so be it. I've long learned about the oppressive ways of this life and I'm not afraid to allow myself things I've been without for so long... and it's been given to me in the most unexpected form in the most unexpected time of my life. It's not as though I didn't think of it as well. After we kissed beneath the tree, I'd already had rambling thoughts about if and how we could have each other in spite of the particular conundrum our birthplaces present. Truthfully, we should've talked about it then and there but, I'm glad you came to me today. You've always been a remarkable gentleman, Jamie." She then laughed, her eyes twinkling with the birth of a new thought. "Besides, it's not as though we haven't any conveniences to aid us."</p><p>"Have we?"</p><p>"Colum allows us to work together. Not much has to change in that. It won't come as an absolute shock to anyone that Leoch's healer and Lallybroch's farmer are often in each other's company. We'll simply mark locations that provide us discretion in addition to that."</p><p>"Aye," Jamie nodded, grasping her meaning instantaneously. "Ye're a verra canny lass." How in god's name had he ended up with the blessing that was her? </p><p>"And as for the physicality of our relationship..." A blush formed in the nest of Claire's bosom, perfectly visible to his eyes from the cut of her dress, and advanced up the column of her neck. She unsheathed her hands from his, placing an ivory palm upon his thigh, skin exposed from the hiked length of his kilt. It had been just like when they sat near the fire pit. Only they finally belonged to each other, could touch he each other freely. She traced an enticing pattern there, cool embers calmly dancing in her crystal blue eyes.</p><p>"I do burn for you, Jamie. And I mean to be forward about that," she promised.</p><p>"Oh, aye, Sassenach?" A lascivious smirk overcame his lips. </p><p>"Aye," she said, drawing a rumbling laugh from him.</p><p>Jamie leaned in, light fading from his field of vision as their shadows crossed. From the corner of his eye, he caught the bundle of food he put on the stool and he was jolted by the reminder that she likely hadn't nourished herself in hours while she worked. </p><p>"I forgot- I brought ye something to eat!" </p><p>"Yes, you have," Claire hummed, her fingers raking into the loops of curls at his nape and pulling him until their lips joined again.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When Jamie fancied lassies in his bairn days, he'd never been discreet about it. He didn't care if every village interspersed across the Fraser lands knew that the Laird's son had taken a liking to one of the girls. He'd all but sang about it in his days of juvenescence, when the ignorance of life's darkest troubles had yet to batter his spirit.</p><p>Before he was taken to Fort William...  </p><p>He remembered the ways of things between his parents when his mother was alive. He'd never seen other mothers and fathers behave as his did. He grew up bearing witness to a marriage rooted like a great oak in love and the appetite his parents had for it- for each other. They were so...free of heart, compelled by their strong fiery spirits, always coiled around each other like yarn slithered tightly over the varnished steel of a needle.  </p><p>He never consciously emulated the things he'd seen as a child, but he knew he wanted to have those things with Claire, and he knew that she was worthy of receiving that same affection in the same way he saw between his parents- in unconstrained splendor.</p><p>To love Claire was to be hurled into an abyss, cast out from the fetters of comfortable idleness of spirit into the whirling depths of a vastness of sensations uncharted. Nothing compared to her. Not an inkling of the fleeting passions and fanciful lusting of a time before could be likened to what Claire Beauchamp had done to him.  </p><p>In the depths of her, he would remain. And happily. Where did she lead? Where would she take him? These things mattered naught to the voyager. He would follow, no matter the adversaries awaiting him in the odyssey of their relationship that they pursued.</p><p>To think of her, Claire, his Claire- thank god at last he could say so- it was like bringing his soul close to the flaming belly of a fire. He welcomed the way the intimacy of it burned, just as he did for her. </p><p>He didn't think he would ever comprehend the way of it, nor did he think he'd ever need to. All that there was to understand was that a passion had blossomed between the two of them, two outsiders in vastly different ways finding unity in a capacity they could've never anticipated. And they would be protective of that, as though it were a tangible entity.</p><p>He supposed it <em>was</em> quite tangible, in fact. </p><p>Jamie looked down at the brown mass of curls splayed upon his chest and smiled at its possessor. His love. One of his hands rested upon his knee, his dirk and scabbarded sword only a breath away from where they sat. His other hand was entwined with Claire's in a soothing vise. She had clasped it between her wee fingers as soon as she sat between his thighs, her bum relentlessly pressed up against his groin, deciding that she would spend their evening with her back upon his chest, overlooking the work they've accomplished in the herb garden so far, and in the further secluded distance, the grey heap of stones that was Leoch.</p><p>Claire's garden had once been a burdensome trek away from the castle and she once regarded the hunched growth of some of the surrounding trees as  cumbersome to her work. </p><p>Now, it was just the refuge they needed, sequestered away from damnable inquisitive eyes. </p><p>The sequoia that Jamie's back was pressed upon stretched upwards into vastness, its leaves seemingly scraping the heavens. Between the green particles of leaves, the sky was a visible cream blue, the sun hidden away behind the misty valleys in the Highlands. The calling of grey herons could be heard, their harsh screeches scurrying across the air in search of a mate. Every now and again, Claire's laugh came in low rapid giggles at the unbecoming sound. The warm press of her head rattled upon his skin. He couldn't stop himself from angling his nose into her tresses and inhaling the tart scent from her scalp. Oil of juniper, it must be. It was sweet and woodsy, like lemon and apple and evergreen. Like Claire. </p><p>Jamie thanked the lord for the kindness of this day, hoping to preserve this moment for as long as it were meant to last. </p><p>They'd spent the past two weeks allotting special attention to her garden, clearing off the dead land, digging up and discarding the old partitions, and watering and fertilizing, diligently preparing for the planting period.</p><p>Claire's patch of the earth needed a different kind of loving than the expansive fields they'd worked on the other days. The herbs she needed to grow were very special, and the soil needed to be prepared delicately. Her aptitude for sciences and the ways of application of her knowledge were ever so intriguing.  They were using sulphur that Jamie had Murtagh purchase from the Smitty's at Claire's behest. The minerals, she'd said, would condition some of the soils where selected herbs thrived in acidity. Other herbs needed to be grown on limed soil, its elements particularly nutritional to the dirt.</p><p>Colum hadn't erred when he said her knowledge would benefit him. It wasn't often that he could be told about tending to the land that he didn't already have comprehension of.</p><p>Most men would be bitterly intimidated. But Jamie prided himself in his evasion of rolling about in the squalor of the lowest common denominator. Claire's erudition pleased him greatly.</p><p>She was daring and exciting in all manners.</p><p>At the start of things between them, there was a timid tenor in their navigations. It was both clumsy and excitable, like the bobbling legs of a toddler taking their first steps. But surely, the bones of their relationship began to fuse and they began to feel more in control of their steps as they found a rhythm.</p><p>They understood that they had to enjoy each other in glimpses and in those glimpses were a world of intimacy itself. They found ways to be together in plain sight. When they were working the fields and she came to help when time availed for it, the men- save for one Murtagh Fitzgibbons- didn't pay her much mind anymore, now that they were accustomed to her presence- save for the ribald talk when the need to tease her arose- but they didn't take heed overmuch to the closeness between the healer and the farmer.</p><p>Breakfasts were taken in the kitchen with their backs pressed to the west wall as they conversed quietly among themselves, occasionally diverging into talk with the other men so as not to appear too concentrated. During dinner in the Great Hall, one hand always managed to find the other beneath the table as their forks scraped their plates above.</p><p>Feet toyed and legs tangled with each other in a playful flirtatious game while all else ate and drank obliviously. Colum would say the lord's prayer over each meal and Jamie would peel one eye open to find Claire's opaque blues fixed on him just above her knuckles, tied in a clasp and pressed against the bridge of her nose.</p><p>Their lunches were together more often than not. They spent the hour wisely each time, picking places that were least likely to be intruded on- the stables and Claire's herb garden came to be their most favored locales. They were free to enjoy each other in companiable silence or in amorous expression, taking to each other's mouths and ruffling hands upon each other's bodies-<em> O Dhia</em>- Jamie thought, swallowing, it was enough to feel he might explode from head to cock. </p><p><em>Do you not want me?</em> He couldn't believe she'd asked that day in the surgery. How in god's name could she even think so? What he felt was a silent torment that culminated in violent burstings behind his closed bedroom door.</p><p>The lord knew he'd gasped his name in vain in many a night, praying for forgiveness as he wasted his spunk, his body always a damp quivering mess, the desire of Claire as real as the bedding beneath him...</p><p>She waged war on his senses, her forwardness all the more encouraging of his own desire. It was agony and relief bound in one. He would sooner know madness before he knew what it was to not want her.</p><p>But he had never lain with a woman before. And he'd told her solemnly one evening after she pleaded with him to take her, her tongue barely leaving his mouth, her ivory fingers already pulling at the belt that kept his kilt around his hips, his own cock stiff and beckoning.</p><p><em>A virgin?</em> Initial disbelief hovered across her face like a shadow.</p><p><em>Does it bother ye that I am?</em> He had asked, addled with dread that it might.</p><p><em>No</em>, she quickly gathered herself, shaking her head firmly, <em>Does it bother you that I'm not?</em></p><p>
  <em>Nay. It doesna.</em>
</p><p>Jamie had never taken a moment before then to consider Claire within such conditions. She was a Traveler. She'd lived a life unfettered from customary dictations for women in high societies. She was well educated and well spoken, and she conducted herself with a grace she seemed to have been borne of her knowing her worth, rather than a quality she'd been trained by a governess to adopt. But there was a definite wildness that lurked about her like shadows in the daytime. He'd once told her as much. </p><p>He didn't<em> want</em> to ruminate on her laying with other men, but it didn't need to be said, let alone regarded, that she was a woman in possession of sexual experience. A woman in command of her own body. A woman that understood how to extricate from a man what she wanted. He'd known forward lasses in his life. But none of those women had the knife-like efficacy of Claire Fraser. There was a hunger that illuminated the edges of her eyes, a hunger he knew he'd placed there, a hunger he knew she wanted him to sate.</p><p>There were other ways to enjoy each other, she'd assured him, though it didn't need to be said. Jamie was well aware of alternatives. Still she went on, saying that they didn't have to rush into things upon libidinous whims. This was not a bloody fucking whim, though. This was a dam fit to burst where they'd be caught in its deluge and drown! He knew it well enough.  </p><p>Of course he yearned to service her. Touch her. Taste- <em>Christ almighty</em>- </p><p>But he had no desire to bed her for the first time on sheets of dirt and grass or upon one of the creaky old cot in her surgery where patients rotted away! He wanted to go about it in the way that a woman of her birth deserved. She wasn't some common whore or one of Leoch's lecherous kitchen maids looking to be mounted by every moderately attractive man she passed in the corridor.  </p><p>And there was another matter that always brought pause when they began to get amorous with each other to the near point of undress. A matter of an entirely different yet no less serious nature. Something else he hadn't yet told her... couldn't... didn't know how...</p><p>The coarse squawk of a heron foraging for a lover shot across the air. <em>May the lord bless ye wi' a lady bird who'll fill yer heart as my lady does mine</em>, he thought, imparting a sympathetic prayer to the distant avian creature. He felt a strange sense of pity for all who didn't know what it was to feel what he currently felt, even for his former self that had been disembodied from the person he was now. Claire was such an abundance of gift, he wouldn't know how to divide her treasures even if there were a guidebook for it. </p><p>"Tell me about Lallybroch," Jamie felt Claire's fingers squeeze his hand, as if to anchor him from his thoughts back to her. </p><p>"'Tis 'broch,' Sassenach. Lally<em>broch</em>," he corrected, his voice serious, but his cheeks taut with a smile. Claire's body buzzed as she chuckled and her rump shucked itself twiceover against his now interested crotch. "Ye'll need to be learning the Gaelic, a nighean. I'll teach ye some, bit by bit."</p><p>"I'll hold you to that, James Fraser. Now," she said with determinable encouragement. "Tell me about your home."</p><p>Jamie pursed his lips, a strange feeling rushing through him as he allowed himself to think of home. No one- neither his uncles nor the men he worked beside- asked him about his home, about Fraser lands. He shouldn't have expected as much being among Clan Mackenzie but he'd thought he'd gained enough esprit de corps with the men that they should want to know more about who he was, where he came from.</p><p>He realized with a somber twinge that he hadn't breathed more than one word of Lallybroch to any other person besides Claire. He looked down again at the thick brown ringlets before him and hummed with thankfulness, overcome with warmth as he fixed his gaze beyond and conjured his beautiful home.</p><p>"Ye'll ken by now," he began, "Clan Fraser are farmers and engineers and we manage the land verra weel. Between ye and I, it's within my regard that ye havena seen the bonniest sights in Scotland until ye've ridden on Fraser lands. It's bountiful and lush, won over by labor and love, but the land surrounding Lallybroch is truly something special." He saw it perfectly in his mind, the gradience of greens and baths of heathers that embraced the home. "Formally, the property is addressed as Broch Tuarach- Gaelic for North Facing Tower- but locals call it Lallybroch which means Lazy Tower, as it's slightly lopsided." </p><p>"Like the leaning tower in Rome?" Claire wondered aloud with a guffaw.</p><p>"Och nay- no' severe like that," Jamie chuckled, "Nay, ye can only tell from a grand distance and from a verra discrete angle. There was a dastardly earthquake that rocked Scotland about three or four generations ago, my Da told me, it started at Glenulg, a town in the Lowlands, spreading op to the Highlands and reaching as far as Argyll and Bute. By god's kind mercy alone the only damage that was done to Fraser lands was a wee depression in the land on which the broch was built that made the it lean to the left if ye looked carefully enough. And thus Broch Tuarach was renowned as Lallybroch ever since that day."</p><p>They both tittered at that.</p><p>"And your home... is it as mighty as Castle Leoch?" Claire asked after she recovered from her laughter.</p><p>"'Tis more like a grand tower house than a fortress, Sassenach. Mighty in other ways, though, I assure ye." Jamie suddenly felt pinched, hoping to present Lallybroch to the lass as how he'd seen it in his eyes and in his heart. "The ceilings are sae high, I'm sure ye could find heaven there. And when ye're standing outside, 'tis a braw sight to behold. As a wean I'd tilt my heid sae far back trying to look at the top that I'd nearly pop my own heid off. My Da didna let me all the way up to the roof until I was twelve and it came time to help wi' the maintenance and such during the Spring and Winter. 'Tis the only time I feel I have god's own view of the world. When ye're overlooking yer land, and yer people, yer animals, and the way of things, ye start to understand god's pride a bit. Or so I like to think. Ye should see it yerself, Claire. Wi' yer own eyes."</p><p>She turned her head slowly towards his, peering up at him through her dark lashes, her crystal blue eyes overflowing with an emotion that couldn't quite be discerned. Her lips tautened and then she smiled. Her eyelashes swept rapidly as she began blinking, as if to snuff whatever it was she felt, and turned her head away from him, fitting it back against him. </p><p>"And you'll be Laird of your home and Chief of your clan, guardian of all your lands. God's own view indeed," Claire said, fingertips dancing over his knuckles, somberness and awe in her voice. </p><p>Jamie's eyes flit away and his hand involuntarily clenched in hers.</p><p>"I wasna born Laird-to-be," his voice became tight, "'Twasna my birthright. 'Twas my brother's. William." </p><p>"Oh, I do recall now that you've mentioned having a brother to me before, Jamie. I imagined you were the elder of the two and so it was your natural inheritance." Claire sat up abruptly, turning to face him, "Did your brother William abdicate the title in favor of a responsibility-free life?" </p><p>"Ah? Nay- nay," Jamie lowered his eyes to the earth, his chest getting an odd feeling inside it. "He died when I was about seven. So the inheritance passed on to me, the second son. I suppose, though, that him neglecting his birthright to be a vagabond would be the preferable alternative to his life being cut so short. He was only a lad of a mere ten years."</p><p>He released a soft sigh upon the faint sting he felt mentioning it. He didn't care to dwell overmuch upon it. It was a black spot upon his memory. One day he was there, the next day he wasn't. They had been very close, their age difference no deterrent to the adamancy of their bond- not as it was between him and Jenny. He always came to loggerheids with his sister, but his brother held the benevolence of the christ, it seemed, with such a propensity for braveness and kindness, always acting as his guide and his protector. Jamie thought the world of his brother, looking up to him more than he did his own father.</p><p>When he died suddenly of smallpox, it was like being clubbed in the head from behind- knocking your consciousness clean out- and no hope to ever find reason for it. He'd felt confusion and devastation, and for many nights, he had pains in the pit of his stomach. None of the teas Mrs. Crook brewed for him abated the acuteness of what he felt in his wame. And so young Jamie had thought he too must be dying, that god had decided that he would be joining his brother soon. He didn't mind that thought very much as a wee lad. </p><p>"There are still days," Jamie confessed gently, "When I believe wi'out a sliver of doubt that William would've been a better man than I. Stronger, I think. He was rightly born to be Laird, after all. My father had been orienting him for it since he was a wean. But I bear my inheritance honorably. For the sake of my brother, my father, my family, and my clan." </p><p>Softness unexpectedly caressed his jaw and Jamie realized Claire was stroking him in tender like. </p><p>"I'm so sorry for your loss, Jamie. But I'm fairly certain that your brother would be proud of who his little brother grew up to become. You are <em>very much</em> a man of honorabl and admirable qualities. And you could command any force that comes before you, I reckon. I watch you in awe sometimes. How you are with the men in the fields. It's hard to imagine you were oriented for anything inferior to leadership. Perhaps it were truly meant to be so, in some special way beyond either of our understanding." </p><p>Jamie grunted solemnly. "Perhaps."</p><p>"Tell me more. About Lallybroch, I mean."</p><p>"Weel... I've been heir to Clan Fraser for as long as I can remember. So I ken the Fraser lands like the back of my own hand. My grandsire presently resides in Beaufort Castle but he's built good properties along the land during his service as chieftain. The British officers often dwell in them for their quarterly border periods when they're making their rounds but we've housed dukes and earls as weel. We've bonny rivers, abundant with cod and trout, and perfect for guddling fish in the spring and winter. When my ancestors were doing the first years of land clearing, they took care to leave much forests behind so that we may be able to depend on that habitat for the winter. Those forests have yielded us many excellent game seasons. The look of the land is verra easy upon the eyes as weel. It isna rough and craggy, but stretched wide with even plains and gentle hills. And the harvests are usually verra good."</p><p>Jamie could feel himself getting animated, forgoing the tension he'd felt discussing his brother and recalling another vivid detail to regale Claire with. "And ye should see our stables, Sassenach. We've the best horses in all the Highlands. Elspeth herself comes from a long line of Fraser breeding. And there are a sector of huts where our engineers work when it's needed. Meself included. And we've an abundant garden propped upon the front walls of the home and it circles all round til ye reach the courtyard entrance. 'Twas my mother's garden, as she was verra fond of flowers and she liked to grow her own plants for her paints and such. My father has a keeper tend to it in her memory but I reckon ye'd make a true beauty of it wi' yer own herbaceous talents, lass."</p><p>There was light in Claire's eyes and a warm. delighted smile on her face.</p><p>"Lallybroch sounds like something roused from a dream and made into an elaborate reality," she said. "It sounds so beautiful. Hearing you talk, I can almost see it in my mind. I can tell you love your home very much. It must be hard being away from your family and clan for long."</p><p>Jamie considered it deeply.  </p><p>"Tell ye the truth, a nighean. I havena thought much about the pain," he disclosed, readjusting his legs to re-accommodate her so she could draw herself upon him once more, "Since ye made me yers." God, it felt good to say so.</p><p>"It does help, doesn't it?" Claire sighed after a moment. "Having someone in a place like this? I myself haven't cried for my uncle for a time. Not since our first lunch together, I don't think. You just... have a way about you, Jamie. You're like the sea, Pulling me in without my knowing it. It's not until we're parted that I realize just how adrift I am with you. Here might not be home but, I am glad we're together." </p><p>Jamie's hand rose from the cap of his knee to the velvet slant of her jaw, his thumb angling her head back. He stared into her eyes as though their linked gaze was a tunnel to pour their thoughts through. He looked at her lips, dark and supple as cherry. Ready to be taken and tasted. He thought only of one thing now, and slanted his mouth over hers.</p><p>"As am I, mo nighean donn."</p><p>He kissed her again and then pulled back, their lips making a wet sound as he gave her a concentrated look.</p><p>Claire's eyebrows tensed and her lips pursed, an unspoken order to resume what he started. He descended upon her mouth in eager compliance, a low rumbling noise bubbling within him as he felt her tongue push between his lips.     </p><p>He would grow old enough to know ache in his rickety bones and lose the copper luster of his hair to a snow white. But in all that time he would never forget the sweet taste of Claire Beauchamp's mouth. Nor the moist smacking sounds of their lips in amorous dance. </p><p>He was breathing densely as he felt her arm reach up and her fingers latch on to his curls, pulling him harder against her mouth. Notching the intensity of their kiss into infernal oblivion, she locked him in place, arching her back in such a way that pressed her arse deeper against his cock which she undoubtedly felt pricking her through his kilt. </p><p><em>More</em>, the notion growled from within Jamie. <em>More</em>. It became beast-like.</p><p>Jamie's mouth began to prowl, wandering from the clamp of Claire's mouth to both mounds of her ruddy freckled cheeks, both so suitable for sweet droplets of adoration. He heard Claire giggle as he skimmed his lips down the keen edge of her nose. He was tracing the contours of her beautiful face with his mouth while his hands pawed at her middle up against the rough texture of wool where it rose and depressed with every breath she took. His lips set course down the length of her neck. She emitted a sharp sound and he could feel the small muscles in her neck extend as she purred for more affection upon her throat.</p><p>"Have I ever told ye ye've the most beautiful swan neck, Sassenach?" Jamie panted mid-pursuit.</p><p>"No," Claire answered, though it was more like a gasping moan as he sealed his lips to her throat and drew the skin tightly between his lips as he sucked.</p><p>"Ye'll forgive the quiescence of my compliment, then," Jamie said. His tongue laved a trail from the base of her jaw to the base of her throat and her neck seemed to dance with him.</p><p>"You'd better not suck too hard there and leave a mark, or I'll throttle you, Jamie," Claire managed to say.  </p><p>He huffed good naturedly at that, recalling her firm admonition against mottling her skin with his ministrations. Her neck and collarbones and the swells of her bosom had limits on how much attention could be devoted to them. The Highlander woman's code of dress meant that a fair portion of their chest laid open and bare for all man and woman to see, save for the winter when it was customary to wear cloaks and thick underlings to protect the body from the cold. He wasn't such a mindless beast to leave behind any marks on that fine skin of hers where anyone could see. Though the baser components of him wanted to... </p><p><em>Dinna be a clotheid</em>, he said to himself. He barely muffled his groan of disappointment as he ripped his mouth away from her throat.   </p><p>He felt like an animal desperately perusing for a vulnerable spot on the body of its prey. With Claire's body buzzing against his and his own cock getting itself into a terrible cockstand, he knew he'd stepped smack dab into the threatening crosshairs of desire. He felt an acute sense of alarm rising through him. He needed to- he needed to-  </p><p>"Oh, Jamie," he felt Claire's voice- a low whine- vibrating from her skin to his, "Please touch me." </p><p>"Where, lass?" Jamie whispered, his heart thumping like mad.</p><p>"Everywhere," Claire moaned. Her other hand yanked his head back to her and she roughly thrust her tongue into his mouth. She was quite strong despite her bitty swanlike stature. "Oh god, everywhere. Please." She didn't want him to stop like the other times.</p><p>"Lass, I-" his words halted.</p><p>His lass just <em>begged</em> him for his touch.</p><p>He would acquiesce like a man with no possessions left in the world save for his worth in his service in bondage. Mouth hung slightly open, Jamie's hands moved further up Claire's bodice until his fingers felt the solid curve of wooden buttons. One by one, he pushed them through their tiny slits. Claire perked up and gnawed at his lips encouragingly, pressing her mouth hard against his. With her mewling like so, it was nearly difficult to navigate with just his hands. But he continued unbuttoning until he reached the edge of her bodice, the rest of the material descending into the skirts of her dress.</p><p>He tore his eyes open to watch as her bosom exhaled from its confines and he saw the pale cotton outline of her brassiere and the milky velvet of her skin below. </p><p>"I said touch me, goddammit," Claire's hand sprung out and took Jamie by the wrist, pushing his large hand beneath the soft cotton of her brassiere to the even softer cotton of her breast. Her nipple was as hard as stone beneath the palm of his hand.</p><p>Jamie prayed for the strength of his cock. To not spill his seed prematurely and make his self the greatest numpty there ever was before Claire Beauchamp. </p><p>"Oh god, Sassenach," he said through gritted teeth. He squeezed her breast for the first time beneath her clothes. He could feel Claire's eyes on him but he couldn't make contact with her yet. He was too enthralled with how warm and filling she felt underneath his hand. He had to see it with his own eyes. Like a beast, he roughly jerked her brassiere downwards and both breasts jounced hypnotically until they stilled. They were two hillocks of pearly flesh, so full and round with nipples pink and pointed and primed to be touched with fingers and covered with mouths.     </p><p>"I canna believe it," Jamie was breathless, hands kneading her breasts slowly like a potter, fingers flexing and palm flattening and massaging her flesh. "This is what's been lying beneath...all this time...Ifrinn. I swear upon the land I am to inherit that I've ne'er kent a prettier sight, nor feeling than yer breasts, Sassenach." It was the truest declaration he'd made yet.</p><p>He held her breasts in both hands as if to weigh them. They were so dense and so soft and they filled the cups of his fingers so well. His thumbs scraped lightly over her nipples, tracing small revolutions around the pink circumference until he finally sated the urge he had the moment he saw her bare breasts and pulled at the wee nubs.</p><p>"<em>Ah</em>," Claire moaned victoriously. Jamie's eyes at long last shot up to her face to see her crystal eyes sparkling between her rows of dark eyelashes. Her cheeks were rosier than normal, and her plump bottom lip was clamped between her teeth. He'd never seen her like this. Utterly captivated, he pulled and pinched her nipples again and her arse ground reflexively against his cock. "I like that, Jamie."</p><p>Jamie felt a bead of moisture escape him and dribble uncomfortably down the strained length of his cock and he squeezed the cushiony flesh of her breasts as though it would stay his swelling balls from exploding.</p><p>He'd felt breasts before. Seen plenty more while in France. But he had seen none like Claire's. None so bonny that he felt so close to wasting his spunk on the spot without so little as a brush of fingers against it. Though granted, Claire was grinding her arse every now and again upon him. She wasn't- or at least he didn't think so- trying to make him lose himself. </p><p>
  <em>Lord please dinna let me spill my seed! </em>
</p><p>Jamie spread his legs further, pivoting his hips forward to nudge Claire's bum from the tent in his kilt. Her own intentions in mind however, she merely slid down. The view of her breasts from here were now even more prominent. </p><p>"Nì thu mo chridhe a ’spreadhadh," Jamie grunted.</p><p>"What was that?" Claire asked. Her head thumped against his chest as she sought an answer from him. He certainly did need to train her in the Gaelic. But in this moment he was grateful she didn't understand a word of it.</p><p>"I said," he managed, "Wicked minx, ye are." </p><p>"Oh, am I?" </p><p>"Aye, ye are!" Jamie laughed lasciviously. "Cajoling me up this mountain where no man or woman has ventured and baring yer breasts to me- ho lord. And tempting me to touch ye in the most foul manner!" He pawed her breast meaningfully. "Ach!"</p><p>"I don't suppose I'm due for punishment for my scandalizing you?" Claire said, her eyelashes fluttering as her fingertips danced over one of his knuckles.</p><p>"Aye... as am I for succumbing to ye! I shall think of something...suitable... for the pair of us."</p><p>Jamie's words lost direction as Claire pulled her skirts up until her willowy thighs were exposed to the crisp Scottish air. Without preamble, she took the hand that she'd been playing with and guided it forwards and inwards, laying it upon her inner thigh where he felt the first spirals of soft curls and the emanation of a heat like no other.</p><p>"Have you touched a woman here before?" Claire's voice was thick and low. She was panting with yearning but her body was otherwise entirely still. How could she be so? Jamie was humming all over. </p><p>"Aye," Jamie swallowed.</p><p>"Truly??" </p><p>"I told ye I'm a virgin, Claire. That doesna mean I lived as a monk. But I dinna have as much experience in the matter as I'd like..."</p><p>"How-" Claire began to inquire but Jamie disrupted her investigation.</p><p>"Only one lass," he said curtly. "And I dinna want to talk any further about it."</p><p>He didn't want to think any bit about the men who had touched her- shown her that she could achieve pleasure like this. He only hoped he could live up to the standards that Claire had amassed through experience. Annalise had been the only woman who he touched in similar nature but it was nothing like this. Yes, both women were in control in these parameters, but Annalise only wanted to see how far she could take him before teasing him that he was trop mignon. Claire seemed to have wanted this for him as much as she wanted it for herself.</p><p>Asides. Annalise was a mischievous lassie caught between promiscuity and chastity. Claire was a woman who was upfront in the matters of what she wanted. </p><p>Licking his lips, Jamie was emboldened by Claire's pliancy and invitation. He inched his hand forwards and caressed her bare and they both hitched their breaths at the same time.</p><p>She fit in his hand perfectly like a sweet apricot. He spread his fingers, identifying everything he felt. The speckles of curls upon her soft mound. The moist-laden folds of her quim. The heavy dampness at her entrance. Claire's eyes fastened on him and Jamie watched the wee indentation between her brows form as he extended his forefinger and middle finger downwards to feel more of that.</p><p>"Ye're slippery," he marveled.</p><p>"That means I'm very aroused," Claire supplied, shifting her hips eagerly against his fingers.</p><p>"Do I often get ye wet like this?" Jamie asked as he rubbed his fingers up and down. </p><p>Claire sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and nodded, her eyes almost pup-like. "<em>Mmm-hmm.</em>"</p><p>A mannish sense of accomplishment flared through Jamie's being.</p><p>He raised his fingers from between her legs so he could see what it looked like. It was clear and viscous, sparkling like quartz when the tiny streams of sunlight from above hit it. He rubbed his thumb against the thick moistness, humming with curious delight. "Spreads like honey, mo nighean donn. I wonder, does it taste like honey as weel?" </p><p>It tasted nothing like honey. It was saltier, and sweeter as well, and he imagined using his mouth on her to taste more of her divine flavor. Honey was naught but a pale comparison to this for the sole reason that it was Claire's natural sap. </p><p>"God... <em>Sassenach</em> ...if ye've ever kent what my dreams have been about since first I saw ye, ye'd be weel awed to ken that this is better than I ever thought." </p><p>"I want your fingers inside me, Jamie. Now." Claire's eyes were burning with a most fervid urgency.</p><p>Jamie's fingers obediently dipped back between her thighs, disappearing beneath the bundles of rucked up skirts, his digits stroking across her quim until they accepted invitation to her honeyed entrance. She took care to pluralize her request, but his hands were large and he didn't know if she could take more than two, at the least, inside her. </p><p>He went slow at first, absorbing the way Claire's entire body became alight as his fingers pressed deeper and she received him, the hot wetness enveloping his fingers and the small contractions from within her quim sucking his fingers further in. </p><p>Claire moaned lowly, "Thank you. Yes." </p><p>Jamie continued his expedition, his mind heedfully cataloguing every audible and physical response Claire gave. He pulled his fingers out and inched them back in, marveling at how Claire began to make needy noises. He did it again and this time her hips followed in slow writhing motions- a mimicry of the charming undulations of a viper. God she was so smooth and so- Jamie's cock pumped at the prospect that it may feel Claire's walls around it someday. If she felt this good on his fingers, he might die the moment he was inside her, joined as a man and woman in true love ought to be. </p><p>His arm was pressed against the region between her breasts and with each motion of his hand, he jostled the plump swells of flesh. </p><p>He wanted to move from behind her and sprawl on his belly so he could see her quim before his very eyes, see his fingers pushing inside her, but everything about here and now seemed so meant to be; it seemed an awful shame to disturb it.</p><p>He felt her body speaking to him, encouraging him to adjust the speed of his fingers inside her. </p><p>His fingers moved quicker, flexing experimentally and then curving tenderly against a different spot inside her. Claire let out a choked noise and one of her hands latched onto his arm that lay between her breasts. Her fingers dug tightly into his sark-covered muscle.</p><p>"Like that?" Jamie turned his lips to her temple.  </p><p>"<em>Yes</em>," Claire cried, "Wait!" She flung her left leg so that it rested outside his left thigh and did the same with the other. Somehow, her spreading her thighs wider allowed his fingers to go deeper. He thrust his fingers faster and harder, rubbing against that notable spot inside her- the one that made Claire squeak and moan and gasp- and she began to buck against him as though his hand were a horse and she its master. </p><p>She was producing the most maddeningly beautiful sounds Jamie'd ever heard. And he was the one orchestrating them! For a flash of a moment, he was concerned of her volume. But they were on high grounds, distant from the castle, and the air wasn't open, but massed with trees, and for whatever sounds did escape, they were shrouded still by the squawking herons up in the skies. Jamie's ears were finely tuned and picked up on everything between and beyond them. The squelching tempo of his fingers knuckled inside Claire's quim, the jagged moans escaping Claire's swollen wet lips, his own heavy breaths from his exhilaration and concentration upon her pleasure, every critter dwelling on the ground and residing in the sky. He would be able to hear any soul that decided to encroach upon him while he was loving his woman with his hand. There was no one near.</p><p>This was their own world here, just as the rowan tree behind the southern castle wall was. Claire was free to sing her pleasure to the trees and the heavens. </p><p>"<em>Ah! Ah! Jamie!</em>" </p><p>Her nipples were engorged and her breasts peaked and concaved as her breathing grew harsh and rapid. Each exhalation was punctuated by a hoarse cry.</p><p>Holy god, she was becoming hysterical with pleasure.</p><p>"Tell me, mo nighean donn," Jamie attentively requested.</p><p>"I am close," Claire whined, her eyes tautened, the cool shade of her eyes masked away in carnal oblivion. "Please. I can't stand it, Jamie. More."</p><p>It could split his heart in two, the way his Sassenach sobbed his name so. His own cock pulsed, starved for its own deserving attentions. Vibrant titillating images of Claire's ivory dexterous fastening around his length to relieve him made a sound that was nothing short of animalistic reverberate through him.   </p><p>He rapidly plunged his fingers into her cavernous wet depths to follow the mounting vigor of her pleasure, to deliver her to the place she needed to go. Instinct led his other hand to her left breast, his recollection of how she responded to her nipples being stimulated most immediate. As soon as he clamped his fingers around her hardened nipple, he felt a new rush of slick between her legs. He squeezed her nipples again and again, hand circuiting from one breast to the other and sped the movements of his fingers inside her so fast that it made her entire body winding up. </p><p>She intook a sharp breath and held it. Christ, Jamie thought, she's about to-  </p><p>"-Fuck!!" The expletive suddenly ruptured in Claire's throat followed by an eruption of shudders that he felt spread from inside her outwards. Her hips bucked from the ground and he didn't cease the motions of his hand- Lord she was clenching him in ruthless abandon from the inside! -He only watched, jaw slacked, as the string finally had been pulled and she became a glorious unraveling. She seemed unable to control her jutting movements, her face wild, her cries directionless, her body and soul free.  </p><p>Claire's hips continued to rut against his hand until her climax tempered and quelled and Jamie finally felt he should dislodge his fingers from inside her. He knew how it felt, after he'd spent himself, how his cock shied away from his touch, feeling all too much. It must be the same for a woman, after she reached that same place.  </p><p>Together they sat, almost feeling bonded to the solidity of the sequoia that supported them this entire time, while Claire recuperated, and Jamie watched. The hand that was doused in her slick it rested upon her skirts while the other danced almost shyly over her breasts, up her collarbones, up her throat, and settled around the warm base of her skull where her downy curls rested against her nape. He turned her face to his and pressed a feather-light kiss to her mouth.  </p><p>At last, Claire's eyelids fluttered upon and her lips, abused by her teeth, curled into a smile meant so uniquely for him.</p><p>"I canna believe my eyes and ears, woman. Thank ye for baring yerself so to me," Jamie uttered. </p><p>Claire raised a hand to his face, appearing to be in the fogged midst of gathering her thoughts to muster up a semblance of a sentence. She shook her head and giggled softly in defeat, turning her face to the side and resting upon his breast. She let out one heavy sigh of satiation. </p><p>"Aye...take yer time...ye came apart in my hand, Sassenach. Ye'll need a moment to gether yerself back." </p><p>"Slong," Claire murmured leadenly.</p><p>"Hmm?"</p><p>"So. Long." Claire said, her voice clearer. "It's been so long since I came like that. Let alone felt like that. In fact," she beamed, "I don't think I've ever felt-" </p><p>Then she stopped, trusting that Jamie would be able to conclude what she was trying to say. He did. And it was the proudest he ever felt in his life.</p><p>"Ye'll let me do this, lass? Whenever we can?" His cock jumped in echo of sentiment. </p><p>"And more," Claire told him. She idly sat up, attempting to turn and face him, but her arms were so wobbly. "I can feel your cock stabbing me in the arse. Let me take care of you, Jamie. Like you did me..." She placed her fingers against his thigh but his hand came down and covered hers.</p><p>"No- No, Sassenach. Not now," Jamie spoke tenderly, though he'd crushed his and his cock's dreams for the day. "Ye're spent and we must be making our way back in a moment. I shall hold ye for a few minutes, aye?" He gathered his lass back upon him, this time her side laying against him. "Mayhaps afore we set for Leoch we'll be lucky enough to hear one of lady herons answer the call of the males." </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Hauld yer wheest for a moment, lad," Ned Gowan's marble-like eyes preened at Jamie through his gold-rimmed glasses docked upon the Toucan-esque shape of his nose. "Pardon. 'Tis only that ye speak faster than the engine pushes a locomotive and sharp as my mind may be, I want to be sure I've gotten all the details correct. I need ye to go back to what ye were saying- afore the mention of the rice grains."    </p><p>Jamie regarded him with a queer expression, not caring overmuch for being interrupted, as he was well proceeding into his report.</p><p>Tiredness had seeped into the very set of his bones, having caught naught but a wink of rest last night and spending all day today herding cattle after one disobedient cow caught a fit and trampled through the fencing. The other cows were ignited with curious spirit and followed suit. It wasn't long before the men working the fields noticed the enclosure was empty and shouts of alarm broke into the air. It was a nightmare of sorts. There were several dozen heilan coos shuffling about over the wide plains, if not trampling on newly seeded grounds then risking themselves for thievery by some straggler.  </p><p>It was an event. Jamie hadn't herded cattle like that since he was a lad, sent out on commission to help some of the other farmers in villages neighboring the Broch Tuarach estate.</p><p>The Mackenzie cows weren't groomed for organized containment and Leoch's cows in particular were fairly accustomed to a life of aimless leisure- save for when it was time to be milked or butchered. It had been an exhausting task in the first place, after getting the fence built, to round all the copper-tinted shaggy beasts up. He should've known there'd be an eventual insurrection.</p><p>It took hours upon hours to recollect all the bovine beasties. Much of the day was lost to that, and Jamie's afternoon concluded with the acknowledgement that he'd have to bring some dogs to mind the sneaky lot of cows now that they'd shown their propensity for rebellion.</p><p>Jamie had barely rinsed the muck of the day off his body and inhaled more than two spoonfuls of porridge before there was a sharp rap against his door and a young lad by the name of Baxter presented him with a letter from none other than his uncle Colum Mackenzie. Ifrinn. </p><p>He was summoned at random to the Laird's room for an update and assessment of sorts. He was sure to bring Murtagh with him, having the fair sense that something must've been amiss. </p><p>Dougal was there, towering fiercely above his brother who sat staidly in his Laird's seat. Ned Gowan was there as well- for posterity- Colum explained, as Gowan was out on business the first time Jamie had gone over the farming schedule with the Mackenzies, and now that he was back, his presence was required.</p><p>Jamie wasn't very trusting of the man. His history with the Mackenzies coursed deep- even before he was born- he'd arranged his mother's marriage to the successfor for Clan Grant for goodness' sake. No man willing to draw up contracts that one of its affected participants didn't consent to was one of impeccable moral standing. Gowan was friendly, yes, but he didn't strike him as any different from most lawyers in possessor of a personal indifference and a couple of biases to boot. He was too cunning and too quick witted. He was a man with things to hide. Not unlike Colum and not unlike Dougal.</p><p>Claire seemed to like him well enough. They hadn't spoken yet about the man. But Jamie elected to be shrewd around him. His distrust was aided by how he was treated during the collecting of the credits from Colum's tenants. </p><p>Taking a terse breath, Jamie rowed back to what he'd been saying.  </p><p>"We'll be introducing crop rotation by planting here in the Spring. Barley's better to grow than the wheat. It keeps stronger in the frigid winter, and bides well in the wet spring. It doesna need too much care. It grows best wi' minimal interference. Oats are less likely to catch the blight. So we plan to plant twice as much oats as we do barley. Given the timetable of about sixty days til harvest, once we circle back round to Autumn there can be new crops planted."</p><p>"Sounds lengthy and expensive, no?" Ned asked. "I was brought up in the township of Edinburgh. I'm not versed in the ways of agricultural life."</p><p>"The purpose of crop rotation is to keep the land active and rich wi' a steady flow of harvest," Murtagh explained. "'Tis a simple rotation, nay more than two crops. We've already purchased the seeds and prepped the seeding drills. There's been no cause for concern of overt expenses. So long as ye arena over-producing and maintaining the land in between as Jamie is teaching yer men."</p><p>"Aye," Jamie nodded gratefully to his godfather. He looked to his uncles. "The next months are vital to the future of yer land. Here is an almanac of sorts. It's a schedule for our Spring planting. Usually the rotation systems are more complex but we dinna yet ken how well the crops will take to the newly fertilized land. We'll see how the yield goes come Autumn. My primary focus is to prepare for Winter. Especially for the animals. We must get those grain fields underfoot. The goats and cows will need nutritious land for grazing so I've starting up a plot to grow alfalfa, brome, and legume grass seed which when cured will make for hay. We fatten those animals up and ye'll have a better supply of milk."</p><p>"We've still a way to go. We've prepped the land for potatoes, flax, turnips, and beans. When it begins to get wetter in about two weeks, we'll plant beetroot, carrots, onions, and cabbage. I hope this report satisfies ye?" Truly, Jamie could've had this report written and delivered to his uncles or the lawyer, but the Baxter lad made it seem that his presence must be imminent or else. He stared at the the three men before him, his instincts orienting him to anticipate news of displeasure. </p><p>"Ye and the men will afta be working twice as hard, it seems," Colum said.  </p><p>Jamie cut a glance to Murtagh whose bushy eyebrows camped so low on his face they were nearly covering his eyes.</p><p>"Why do ye say?" his godfather demanded.</p><p>Jamie's eyes sharply caught Dougal tapping his fingers upon his wrist. His hands were clasped in front of him the entire time. He blinked to display control but it was all pretense. Redness crawled up his neck and colored his cheeks. A mark of agitation. </p><p>"The redcoats," his Viking sized uncle dourly revealed.</p><p>Jamie's wame turned. He blinked in rapid succession, finding his vision to be blurry for a moment.</p><p>"But they arena due until Autumn or so. We should have enough time to prepare extra crops for them by then to bring back to their headquarters." </p><p>"They're coming in the Summer." </p><p>Jamie balked. He thrust one arm behind his back so his shaking hand wouldn't be visible to Gowan and the Mackenzies. "Why have I no' been notified sooner!?"</p><p>"Dougal was informed only a week ago while in Inverness handling business," Colum explained. "I feel the same as ye. lad. Tis most unexpected." </p><p>"Ye'll no' have much of anything to present to them. The land isna anywhere near ready for mass production," Murtagh said, his voice as cool and sharp as a dirk's blade. He wasn't overly prone to explosive tempers like most Frasers. Murtagh had his own capacities for anger but how he acted on that emotion parted him from the other Fraser man. The lower and more still his voice became, the deeper the ire was. Jamie could tell he was struck with the same fury that he felt in his own body.</p><p>Bleeding redcoats.</p><p>"So I've gathered," Colum grunted. "They'll be here to collect money to recoup for the loss of crops. I've had Dougal and Ned handle the treasury. We've been taking dents from them but...we'll manage."</p><p>Dougal released a pig-like grunt. He very much disagreed with the arrangement but didn't seem intent on bruising his brother's authority in front of the others.</p><p>"James, ye'll be doing something for me when the British arrive here."</p><p>All the muscles in his body tensed and from his peripheral, Murtagh did the same.</p><p>"What do ye want wi' me, sir?"</p><p>"The parties that have consistently visited us are led by a Captain Reynolds. Do ye ken the name?"</p><p>Jamie shook his head. </p><p>"He's fairly decorated by the King's court. I want ye to make an impression on this Captain. I want ye to give him and some of his men a tour of the lands ye and the men have been working since ye arrived. I'll explain yer purpose and relation to him wi'out shedding too much light on ye being hired help. So as he doesna turn his troops' attention on Clan Fraser perchance. Ye must show that yer labor is done in conviction, to feed the British regiments. Ye ken it does weel to feed the egos of the British. I reckon ye've yer own share of experiences wi' the British in yer home."</p><p>Every ligament in Jamie's hand constricted into an iron clench. </p><p>"Ye've nay understanding atall what my experiences wi' them are. I willna be a friend to the British and I willna frolic about wi' 'em. Ye canna ask this of me, Colum."</p><p>"And what of Claire Beauchamp?" Dougal interjected. </p><p>Jamie blinked and marshalled his expression to one of innocuous disposition.</p><p>"Claire Beauchamp?" he repeated like a parrot.</p><p>"It's been a reasonable amount of time that has passed since I appointed the twa of ye to work together," Colum tacked on his brother's remark. "How are ye liking yer arrangements wi' my healer?"</p><p>What the hell was he playing at?</p><p>Jamie measured his two most immediate options of reaction; succumb to defensiveness or placate his uncle.</p><p>"It's a bonny testament to yer judgment." He chose the route opposite of provocation. "She's an impressive work ethic and a hefty load of knowledge that has benefitted our process and our own efforts wi' the ongoing restoration of her medicinal garden."</p><p>"I dinna ken why ye willna ask Mistress Claire herself if it's her work ye're interested in," Murtagh groused.</p><p>"I am asking James Fraser," Colum asserted calmly. </p><p>"Ehm, weel, Mistress Claire's understanding and views are juxtaposed to my own. She works from a background of science and medicine. Myself I come from a background of agriculturalism and engineering. We've learned a fair amount from each other I would say. It does finely befit the work we do, I would also say." </p><p>The veritable worth of his words helped him to deliver them to his conniving uncle confidently. </p><p>"I presume ye've formed something of a bond? Despite her Britishness?"</p><p>Ah. So that's what the bastard had been circling in on.</p><p>"It's no' the same," Jamie persisted. "She's a Sassenach, aye. But I will admit, times such as these make for strange bedfellows. We've an understanding and respect between us as friends. But she is no' but one woman. I dinna intrude upon her craft and she doesna intrude upon mine. The lot of those whey-faced Redcoats are the devil's doing. They come here in service of nothing but trouble, debauchery, and savagery. They've no place here atall." </p><p>Dougal imparted a curious look to Jamie and then to Ned. Something flashed in his eyes, quick and bright as lightning. </p><p>"Has she informed ye of how she came to be here?"</p><p>Jamie's concentration flickered, the reminder of Claire's loss and mistreatment prickling him all over. What did Colum wish to know? If he thought any more or less of him than the British? </p><p>"As Mistress Claire has told me, she came here originally wi' her uncle who was an explorer of sorts and after his untimely death, she then became yer permanent employ as guest and healer to Leoch and Clan Mackenzie. Why are ye making these inquiries of me?"</p><p>"I ken ye feel as though ye're being interrogated for naught. I ought tae make meself clear in the pursuit of this discussion, as I'm putting ye to new tasks on account of short notice of the Redcoats. When the army does come, I often have Mistress Beauchamp kept in her surgery where she'll be manned so as no' to escape or cause trouble. I ought tae tell ye in advance that ye'll need to be watchful of her, that she doesna pull any tricks on ye when they come next month."</p><p>Jamie shook his head disbelievingly. "I came here under the agreements to act as Master-of-Agriculture. I agreed to work yer land. Tend yer fields. Nourish yer people. Ye're now asking me to act as imprisoner."</p><p>A quick grunt emitted from Colum's frail frame. His grey hair had come apart from its plait- likely after a fit from the unsightly news his brother brought him upon his reemergence to the castle. Raising a hand and swaying it in the air. It communicated to Dougal and Ned that they were discharged from the room. Pairs of boots clubbed the ground noisily before the iron door groaned open and shut.</p><p>"Not imprisoner, James," Colum finally retorted. "I dinna mean to have ye spying on Mistress Beauchamp. At least no' in the classic sense. I am wary of what the British would do should they learn one of their own stays here in my employ. She must remain unseen."</p><p>Jamie's eyebrows raised. The notion, let alone possibility, did not cross his mind, that something could happen to her if the British laid eyes on her. Wouldn't they have known of her already? Certainly there had to have been talk that a British healer roamed the halls of Leoch. But hadn't Mrs. Fitz said that she was the one that did the tending when Claire was incapacitated? Did the cheerful doughy woman stand in place of Claire before the British? </p><p>"What can they do? She's no credits, no husband, nor enough badges to be granted a Pass-through-Port. She canna go anywhere else. She's healer to yer people. If she hasna taken the chance to abandon her post whence the British appeared afore then she willna now. Asides- under Scottish Clan Law, she's under the jurisdiction of yer land. Yer property." It ailed him to describe Claire as such. "She doesna speak of Briton to me. I dinna allow it. As she kens I'm a Scot and dinna wish to speak of such things. It is also, in my personal opinion, Colum, that she has nary a sense of homesickness. She is a Traveler. Ye ken they belong to no home, no name." </p><p>"If she says anything to ye, though. Anything that betrays the notion of escape, ye would do weel to report it back to me."</p><p>Colum was a dangerously wily man. He was also disconcerted by the unanticipated jolt in the schedule he had for when the British would come. He was the sort of man Jamie recognized early on in their meeting, who didn't take kindly to the lack of control he'd been bred to be entitled to. The gnarling knots that made up his legs had robbed him of many things in life. His status as Laird was worth more to him than his own existence. Jamie had gotten the impression that Dougal was monstrously power hungry but he realized in this moment that his smaller brother was the same, only wrapped different cloth.</p><p>He wasn't going to lose this battle. Jamie didn't have a choice here but to bend. Placing his previously discarded hand upon the hilt of his scabbarded broadsword, he dipped into a bow and raised his head half mast to look Colum Mackenzie in his steel eyes.</p><p>"I will act accordingly, uncle."</p><p>"Beannachdan, mac mo pheathar."</p><p>Dougal and Ned were inconspicuously eavesdropping and sloppily stiffened into position when the door opened with an abrasive shriek. Jamie daggered stares at the two of them. He'd had his fill of secretive Mackenzie clansmen today. His kilt cut through the low air sharply as he spun the opposite direction and skulked down the corridor.</p><p>Murtagh ambled behind him in matching bitterness. Jamie could feel his godfather's eyes burning through the peels of fabric cloaking his skin.  </p><p>"So ye're lying," Murtagh said straightaway once they were a fair distance away from the Laird's room.</p><p>"Ye as weel, a goistidh?"</p><p>Their voices dwindled as two masons transporting wide planks of wood trotted past them.</p><p>"I'm no' playing dafty wi' ye," Murtagh hushedly resumed. "It's clear ye're verra well bonded to the Sassenach. And she to ye. Ye've been displaying it. What are ye protecting her for?"</p><p>
  <em>Because she's mine to protect! </em>
</p><p>Hiding the illicit romance from Murtagh had been a choice Jamie made because he knew his godfather would never accept a Sassenach- especially Leoch's Sassenach- being his woman, and his surly disposition would fester like a gaping flesh wound that's not been tended to. Murtagh didn't prod, nor did he give protest when Jamie asked him for more privacy, declaring that he would and could watch his own hide while residing here. There was no chance of doubt that Murtagh had the sense to harbor suspicion towards him and Claire. His godfather wasn't an oblivious imbecile.</p><p>But Jamie didn't care to come to loggerheids with his godfather over something he knew, without yet grasping it in its entirety, to be the truest thing he had and would ever feel with Claire. </p><p>"Would ye leave anyone, even a wee Sassenach lassie who has done nay wrong to our kin, to the mercy of Colum and Dougal Mackenzie? Colum who would banish his own blood for the sake of pride and Dougal who would lay his fists upon a woman just as much as he would plough one? I wouldna." </p><p>"Lad. Ye mustna forget why we came here in the first place," Murtagh hissed warningly behind him. </p><p>Jamie spun to face his godfather.</p><p>"For Christ's sake, Murtagh. Look around ye. Can ye no' see it wi' yer own eyes? Nothing has happened as planned or scheduled. The meaning behind every action is bound to change. It doesna matter how we finish what we started. Sae long as we finish it in the first damn place. Leave my dealings wi' the Sassenach tae me. For they <em>are</em> my dealings."</p><p>His godfather's dark brown eyes fell on him with frustration and confusion towards his acute demeanor. Air shot out of Jamie's nostrils and he turned on his heels and began walking away.</p><p>"Where the hell are ye goin'?" he heard his godfather call after him.</p><p>He didn't bother to grace him with a response.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The corridors of the castle carried Claire to her destination like a seaweed coursing through a current. Her fingers twirled against each other as her boots thumped over the panels of flat stone beneath her feet. Time had long since danced into evening and the castle finally settled into its usual placid spirit at this time in the day. Pale beams of light spilled in from each high window that had been carved into the parallel wall. They lit the floor like a checkerboard. The luster of its glow was dying, a sign that night was soon to come. Her olfactory senses detected the moist aroma of oil. The lamps were being prepped for lighting the castle rooms.  </p><p>She hummed in leisurely cadence, an old favorite of Lamb's that he learned and taught her when she was an adolescent. In her arms were a sealed bottle of whiskey, leftover rabbit, and a half eaten loaf of bread, all tied niftily inside cloth, courtesy of the darling Mrs. Fitz. Claire couldn't help her grin as she thought ahead to what her plans were for the duration of the evening. </p><p>She rounded a bend and nearly lost her grip on her contents of food when a short figure collided up against her breasts. The breath rocked out of her. A sharp squeal accompanied by a frenzy of blonde swishing over her face let Claire know well and clear who her assailant was. </p><p>"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," Claire gritted, stepping back for good measure. "Laoghaire child, do mind where you're going! I could've dropped my things! What ever are you in a rush for?!"</p><p>The girl's high arching golden brows and wringing of her fingers revealed that she was in a mood of particular angst.</p><p>Without bothering to apologize, Laoghaire made her intent clear.</p><p>"Have ye seen Mr. James Fraser today, Mistress Claire?"</p><p><em>That's Mistress Beauchamp to you</em>, Claire thought acerbically.</p><p>Her fingers tensed around her belongings. She girl sensed it because she stiffened as well and her eyes enlarged in a manner that should've been impossible.</p><p>"Have ye?" she asked again. </p><p>She was neither taciturn nor strikingly observant or she would've seen that Claire was ill-receiving of her demeanor. It was either that or she simply elected to not care at all for the impression. It was obvious that she had tunneled her focus on Jamie and not much else.</p><p>The corners of Claire's mouth rose carefully.</p><p>"No," she said with curtness.</p><p>"Might ye have any notion of where he may be?" Laoghaire pressed on with irritating persistence.</p><p>"Should I?"</p><p>"Weel, I only ask because I ken ye've been closely working taegether op yon fields wi' the men and I-"</p><p>"I'm sorry, Laoghaire, but I can't give you an answer to what I don't know. Perhaps you should see about your grandmother. Mrs. Fitz has been making small plates for some of the tired workers. He may be amongst them."</p><p>She saw the girl release the anticipatory breath she had been holding. She made a perfect display of deflation, her proud bullish comportment now crestfallen. One part of Claire harbored guilt for disappointing the girl with the information she deliberately withheld but another part of her thought rather snidely that it served her right. She sniveled around after Jamie like a mouse foraging for its nest. She was clearly well taken to him.</p><p>Well unfortunately for her, so was Claire. In more ways than Laoghaire certainly sought. And it was neither in her desire nor interest to share the attentions and affections of the man with anyone else.</p><p>Claire once used to chastise herself for her internal feelings of possessiveness towards Jamie.</p><p>But things were different now. Jamie was hers plain and simple.</p><p>Laoghaire remained where she stood- in Claire's way- looking as though she might crumble if you blew on her. Claire began to open her mouth to inquire after her health but the girl blinked and hardened with renewed vigor. She stepped past Claire and went the opposite way to find her grandmother and continue her wild goose chase of Jamie Fraser.</p><p>Shaking her head exasperatingly, Claire clutched her goods closer to her and went on to her destination. </p><p>She rapped a staccato pattern on the rough iron of her surgery door, hissing as her knuckles stung. She'd never had to knock on the door before but she had shut it behind her when she ventured forth to get some refreshments. It locked from the inside and she'd left the key inside the drawer of her table. She listened intently for the telltale patter of feet and the clinks of the locks unsheathing and then the door opened.</p><p>"You ought to tell that child that she's no business sniffing around you," Claire said only in half-jest as she entered.</p><p>The door shut soundly and relocked behind her.</p><p>"I dinna ken yer meaning, Claire," Jamie said her name in that handsome Scottish brogue that caused a peculiar sensation to race down the slope of her spine and flutter in her belly until it at the last settled between her legs.</p><p>"Laoghaire," Claire quirked an eyebrow to him. She inhaled his figure, from the titian coils atop his head to the sharp planes of bone and skin that composed the face she so loved to gaze upon whenever she could, down to the angled broadness of his shoulders, covered only by his sark, as he'd relieved himself of his tweed coat and vest. Onwards her appraisal continued, stopping just at his kilt, the muted Fraser colors now appearing closer to black than dark blue and grey now that it was duskier in her surgery. Jamie had taken care to light some lamps in the room while she was gone. "She accosted me in the hallway today demanding information on your whereabouts."  </p><p>"Did she now?" Jamie walked up to her and divested her of the food and drink, "And what did ye say to her?"</p><p>"I told her I hadn't the faintest idea where you were," Claire rose to the tips of her toes and planted a kiss on his mouth. She liked doing that. In the folds of secrecy, they were bursting with freedoms she found to be more exhilarating than parading before every pair of eyes.   </p><p>"Ach, ye deceitful wee thing," Jamie's eyes swept over her face up close. She puckered her lips for another kiss and he obliged before sitting on the creaky cot near the examination table. "Dinna fash. She's only a lassie wi' nay more experience in the world than a bairn."</p><p>"A fairly determined and curious one. Babies are quick learners, you know."</p><p>"Aye, right ye are but, look at the lassie, Sassenach. My sister had twice the competence as she when she were half her age. I spotted her once, as I was tending to yon Elspeth and Cair and Donas in the morning- I kent I wouldna have much time wi' the horses for the week- and she was standing there all doolally-like. So's I ask the lassie what brings her to the mucky stables first thing in the morn? She must've been watching me for a time, ken. But she didna give an answer. Only swallowed like she'd a boulder lodged in her throat. Then she scurriet away."</p><p>Jamie methodically unfolded the flaps of cloth and smiled his thanks to Claire for bringing him some rabbit and bread to fill his empty stomach. And ale, to lubricate his parched throat.  </p><p>"She's fairly taken to you," Claire commented, still set in annoyance.</p><p>"Nae bother. I'm too busy being taken to a lass of my own. And she isna any bit a bairn. Nay, she's all woman. Warm in the fit of my hands. Bonny for the sight of my eyes. And a verra formidable thing to behold." His eyes twinkled when he said it, a crooked smile on his lips.</p><p>Claire crossed her arms and shook her head in surrender.</p><p>"Jealous of a wee lass?"</p><p>"Not one bit! I rather seem to be afflicted by my 'formidable' sense of possessiveness. I suppose she's free to lust after you. So long as it's myself that does the taking."</p><p>"I dinna think there's any cause for concern in that matter. We've an... agreement, after all," Jamie waggled his eyebrows, tearing a string of meat off the roasted rabbit and tucking it in his mouth.</p><p>"Don't tease me, Jamie."</p><p>He made a huffing noise of concession and stripped more meat off the bone. He chewed it industriously, tearing a chunk of bread with his teeth and washing it down with sprightly gulps of ale.</p><p>"I must tell ye," Jamie said after drawing in a breath. "Colum had Dougal, Ned, and myself come together for an impromptu meeting. But I brought Murtagh along wi' me for preemptive sake."</p><p>"So <em>that's</em> what's kept you earlier." </p><p>"Aye," Jamie nodded. There was a considerable weight sitting upon his spirit. She could see it in his eyes, usually vibrant with extraordinary blues and greens, now muddied like a pond with dirt mingling in its shallow depths.</p><p>"Did something troublesome happen?"</p><p>"Colum wanted to ken the progress we've been making wi' the land. And then he told me of his desire to move our work timetable up, so that we might reach harvest sooner. No' that such a thing is possible. We've no' enough workers and the land is still in its fragile stages. But he's got his danders up. And for good reason, I'm afraid," His eyes stared into hers with the edge of a knife. "The Redcoats are coming next month." He seemed to struggle to swallow the next scrap of bread he'd gnawed off.</p><p>Claire's mouth fell open and when no words were brave or coherent enough to drift forth, she sealed it shut. </p><p>She loathed when the Redcoats came to Leoch but for starkly different reasons than one might be inclined to expect. It turned the atmosphere of the castle and its dwellers to something fearsomely tangible; almost as though you could reach up into the air and be stung by the nervousness that clouded it. Hatred for anyone who hailed from Briton was already well commonplace but when the Redcoats were in the vicinity, that hatred boiled over, bubbling and burning and singeing.</p><p>It was a dangerous time for her. In fact, she didn't mind all too much being held in her surgery or boarded in her bedchambers for the duration that the British soldiers came by. It was an appreciable substitution for the snarls and glares that flashed between the pretension of submission and meekness before the Redcoats. </p><p>Colum seemed to pride himself and his tenants in seldom having altercations with the King's officers. Claire reckoned it had more to do with not needlessly spilling blood and inducing the King's wrath on the clan and his people than maintaining fair favor with the King for the sake of being a braggart. Clan Mackenzie held the most power of all the clans, being the largest and most armed in the Highlands, and still Colum had the sense to fear an empire one body of water away from his home.  </p><p>Claire herself only had a measly collection of experience with British soldiers. She'd not known Briton herself as a residence since she was seven years old. Her earliest memories at best were of the waves of crimson she'd see every morning in the streets when she walked behind her uncle on his way to University where he professed.</p><p>Lamb himself had once served as an officer for his Majesty the King two decades ago. He rarely spoke of his time in the King's service and when he did it was always an offhand utterance that quickly segued to a different subject. She'd never even seen his uniform. It was likely still collecting dust in some obscure location in the house in Oxfordshire. Or perhaps collected by the repossessions unit, passed over to a new member of the regiment.      </p><p>She struggled to envision Lamb as a Redcoat in the likeness of the others. He hadn't the pride and hunger of one. He was too... jolly and eccentric and amiable. Opposite of what the Redcoats were known for.</p><p>She'd heard grumblings and stories. Had seen some residual evidence here and there of the Redcoat's abuses of their power upon the country. Claire thought momentarily of her patient Ruraidh and his wife Edina and their babe, a sympathetic ache panging faintly in her. She knew it was not without reason, the Scots' feelings. She came to accept, more and more as of late, that her existence here came with matters of consequence that she would never have control of.</p><p>The news of her kinsmen should've brought her hope and elation. But it never did. And never would.</p><p>Jamie's face was torn. </p><p>"I kent the British were going to come eventually. I'd discussed it with Colum afore when I was first coordinating what our planting schedule would be like. I was prepared. Am. Prepared. But..."</p><p>"There's something else?" Claire asked tentatively.</p><p>"Colum wants me to keep an eye on ye for when the Redcoats come. In case ye express pro-British sentiments and try to return home."</p><p>Claire scoffed. "That's it?" </p><p>She could see from the strain in his eyes that that was precisely what ailed him. He looked positively boyish in this moment, his Viking features slipping away as his eyes were half cast to the ground, fear of probability mapping his face. Oh, her dear Jamie.</p><p>"Well that's poppycock!"</p><p>"Is it?" Jamie's red eyebrows arched up in question. </p><p>Claire couldn't believe his apprehension.</p><p>"Of bloody course it is! Colum's clearly playing at something else. I've never once tried to make a run for it when the Redcoats arrived and boarded. And even if I did intend to say, flail my arms about and declare myself a highborn British woman who was being held captive against my will, all that would happen is that one of the officers would make a petition to their government to make an arrest. And I'm fairly certain that violates a <em>number</em> of clan laws. And in the end what would it be for? The British cannot take me home. I've no Pass-through-Port."</p><p>"I told him the same," Jamie assured her. "But Colum's afraid to let ye out of his sight when the British are near."</p><p>"I don't know why," Claire folded her arms.</p><p>"Would ye ever go back though?" Jamie asked. "If it were in yer power? Say, a Redcoat wi' a particular contempt for us Scots took pity on yer circumstances and found a way tae provide ye wi' means of escape-"</p><p>"Why the hell are you asking me this?" Claire felt herself getting piqued. </p><p>"It made me wonder about yer belonging and how...weel," Jamie gestered betwixt them. "We arena a likely pair. Meself a Highlander and ye a Sassenach. Would ye ever have chosen me if ye werena being held captive here?"</p><p>Claire rolled her eyes, fairly tempted to grab him by his thick red curls and whack the sensibility she knew him to have back into his skull. She took offense to what he said and what was left unsaid, the implications settling like dust.</p><p>"I have been called Witch, Auld One, Fae, slut, wench, and bitch. I have been told that I should be wed off so as to have my arse thrashed by my husband, that I should be muzzled and beaten. I've been scorned and watched and whispered about. I've been ostracized and humiliated. I've been held on counts of suspicion despite the blatancy of its unfounded nature. I lost the only family I ever had when I came here."</p><p>She paused to gather her breath. Jamie's cat eyes were locked on her studiously.  </p><p>"And then you came down that bloody slope of pebbles while I'd been trying to escape my own thoughts," Claire continued. "And from the instant we met, Jamie- Christ! I assaulted you with contemptible language and you simply laughed and introduced yourself to me. You've...you've given me freedom right then and there. Freedom to speak with you in my most truthful manner regardless of disposition. And from then on, you've given me freedom to feel things with you that I'm...I've not felt with anyone else. Freedom to share my mind, my heart, my body. With you. Only with you. Your bestowal is indispensable to me. Why would I exchange that on the flimsy hope of some soldier taking pity on me?"</p><p>Jamie regarded her with a sheepish expression. He understood now. </p><p>"Scoot over," Claire ordered.</p><p>Jamie gratified her, his large form hopping a tad to the left. The cot complained beneath his muscular mass.</p><p>She sat right beside him, the warmth and solidity of him steadying her nerves. His ruddy skin danced with light from the luminance of the lamps, the incandescence catching the edges of his copper hairs on his face, lighting them like one million stars in the sky. She snaked her fingers through the rouge stalks of his curls and she watched as the pink bow of his tongue traced over his mouth, a natural motion she recognized prefaced each of their kisses.</p><p>"I don't want to go anywhere but wherever you are," Claire avowed. Her gaze remained on the rosy pink of his lips and she honed in.</p><p>"Sassenach..." Jamie hungered.</p><p>She angled her head and captured his mouth in a deep kiss. It was bereft of tenderness. She meant to make him feel the depths of what she just told him. Her tongue delved between his mouth and she tasted rabbit and bread and ale and the default taste of Jamie. Greed for him poured through her. She was more than prepared to give her body to him and she didn't care one bit about their whereabouts. The dingy cot would do just fine. She made a whining noise as she angled her head the opposite way and pushed her mouth and tongue harder against his.</p><p>She felt the sturdy pat of his hand against the base of her skull and felt the greater force of his mouth upon hers as he began to take over their kiss. <em>Yes</em>, she thought, surrendering encouragingly to his mouth. </p><p>"Jamie," Claire moaned. "Will you have me?"</p><p>"Mo chridhe," the elusive term slipped in the breath's space between their mouths.</p><p>The smack of their lips echoed in the surgery while her heart beat a heavy tempo of lust between her chest.</p><p>"I want ye sae badly, Claire, I wonder if it's wrong sometimes. To be this sick wi' wanting for another. It's no' just my cock that swells for ye. It's everywhere. My hands. My chest. My wame. My head. Even my damned toes, Ifrinn. All of me wants for ye. It canna be right. Tell me, lass. When ye opened yerself up to me, and I touched ye, felt ye, yer quim slippery as a waterweed, tight as a scabbard, had the wanting that ye felt stopped even for a moment? Even after ye came and moaned and sobbed?"</p><p>"It doesn't stop. It consumes me, Jamie. <em>Oh, it consumes me.</em>" </p><p>Their teeth clanked as they roughly took each other's mouths. Titillation sparked through her as Jamie's hand fluttered over her breasts, budding from her bodice, keen to be freed and fondled like he'd done when they laid against the sequoia, his arms keeping her tucked against the pillar of his body as his fingers slipped inside her and pleasured her until her mind was frenzied and then transmuted to blissful nothingness.  </p><p>In no certain mood to waste any time, Claire brushed a hand between them, over the wool of Jamie's kilt until she found his hardness outlining the fabric. At that same moment, Jamie ripped the zipper to her bodice down to her navel. He paused to make a protesting noise at her brassiere until that too was pushed out of the way. His huge fingers closed firmly around her nipple and his mouth latched on to her neck. Panting with unvirtuous need, Claire's hand slowly danced under his kilt, where it was warmer than the furnaces in Mrs. Fitz's kitchen, until she found him, strained and hard as a caning rod. She snaked her fingers firmly around his cock, already gasping at the thickness in her experimental grip. </p><p>"Och dinna do that!" Jamie suddenly exclaimed. </p><p>In a blur, he untangled them, jostling Claire as he broke away from her. He scrambled to his feet, panting and muttering in rapid strokes of Gaelic.</p><p>Her lips were swollen and her hair mussed and Jamie hadn't looked much different from her. His size made him appear wilder and the frenetic look in his eyes hadn't been injurious to his lion-like countenance. She thought he was ready. There was more to his virginal state than she'd been told, she realized. He craved her. She knew that very well. He displayed it in both word and action and when she felt his cock straining upon her it was always the assurance she needed in that department. But there was something else there, peripheral and undisclosed, something she would need to coax out of him with care. It concerned her. </p><p>Readjusting her brassiere, the metal of her zipper keened as she slid it up. It would be easier, perhaps, for him to speak if she returned to her state of dress.</p><p>"Are you afraid, Jamie?" Claire asked gingerly.</p><p>How could a man so large suddenly look so out of his mind with terror? She wanted nothing more than to coddle him in the moment that he met her eyes just then.</p><p>He swallowed as though it hurt. "Aye."</p><p>"Are you... afraid of me?" </p><p>"Nay."</p><p>"Are you afraid to let yourself be pleasured?" Claire perused.</p><p>Jamie exhaled. "I'm afraid to lose control. I dinna ken how to give in wi'out letting all of myself go. I ken I should be able to. God, I want to. But I canna."</p><p>"Is there...a part of yourself you don't want me to see, Jamie?" </p><p>Claire tried to imagine what it could possibly be. He wasn't missing any limbs nor was he disfigured as far as the eye could tell. His back was broad and his body was carved to an sculptor's perfection, his musculature obvious from how his coats clung to him when he lifted things, and the stamina he proved himself to have when he spent endless hours tilling and toiling and tending in the fields. He was solid and gorgeous, as evident from how when he pressed her hard against him when they kissed, the impact always sucked the breath from her lungs. It must not have been a physical matter. It must have been one of spirit. What had happened to her Jamie? </p><p>He kept quiet and still as a stone baked into the earth over time.</p><p>She inched closer to him and took one of his hands that lay slack at his sides. Her forefinger browsed over the ridges of bones in his hand, bobbing over each knob of knuckle and sifting through the herd of golden-red hairs that grew along it. She turned it to the light so that it glinted the way she liked and then pressed feathery kisses to his skin. She could hear his breathing quicken.</p><p>"You once told me that there was a way of truth between us," she spoke soothingly, "You said that there are things you can't say to me until the time is right for you to say it. I won't take more than you can't give. I promise you this, Jamie."</p><p>She stood on the tips of her toes and brushed her mouth over his. He responded promptly with his lips. </p><p>"Do you trust me, Jamie?"</p><p>"Aye, mo nighean donn," Jamie wrapped his arms around her in a pledging vise. "I trust ye."</p><p>"I want your permission to care for you as you did me. I can feel you, Jamie, I know you need it."</p><p>"Aye," Jamie said tremulously.</p><p>"Do I have your permission?"</p><p>"Ye have it, lass."  </p><p>With that she urged him to sit back on the cot.</p><p>She would not take his body. She was committed to her word when she said she wouldn't take more than he was unprepared to give. She didn't know the extents of his virginity but he had assured her that he was familiar with different routes of sexual pleasure. She'd spent many nights thinking of doing this to him and she was at last going to enact it.</p><p>"O Dhia," the call of the lord grumbled from Jamie's throat as Claire sank to her knees right between his thighs. There was a film of disbelief glazing over his eyes, but behind it they were jittery anticipation and surprise. "Claire..." he licked his lips.</p><p>"Shh," Claire whispered.</p><p>She parted a glance to the door to remind herself that all the locks had been fastened and no one would burst in and catch them. Satisfied with the security measures, she returned her attentions to Jamie and the tented shape at his crotch beneath his kilt. Her fingers grasped the worn split edges of his Fraser tartan and she gradually peeled it upwards, urging Jamie to accommodate her by lifting his bum so that it was frocked up around his waist.</p><p>His legs were composed similarly to the rest of him, long and ruddy, with a particular glow that befitted a man like him. The muscles that forged together over time and effort protruded from his bones, defined and beautiful, and somehow, elegant. Both of Claire's hands settled on his thighs and Jamie let out a shuddering gasp. Millions of titian crops of hair marked his skin and she roved her hands over each one, lavishing the coarse prickles under her hand.</p><p>Her fingers traveled higher until at the apex between his thighs, stood his cock. He was flushed at his base, the root of him and his balls nestled in a valley of red curls. She studied covetously, the map of veins traveling up his cock, guiding her to the final destination where his tip was rouged and a pearl of moisture had already trickled out. It twitched every so often of its own pining accord. Claire had only done the deed but a couple of times before with previous partners and she hadn't yet determined if she found the act to be enjoyable or not but she was instantaneously ravenous for the weight of Jamie's cock in her mouth. </p><p>It was that it was so erected eagerly before her eyes, alluring and more prominent than she'd thought- worthy of a monument. </p><p>Claire could've broken into a round of applause. But Jamie's muscles were constricted and his breath was stuck in his unmoving lungs and his face was painted with such desire that Claire was moved immediately to clasp her hand around his cock.</p><p>"Holy god," Jamie croaked as her hand initiated in slow patterns. His warm skin slid up and down in tandem with the unhurried motion of her hand. The thick fabric of her skirts would protect her knees from the chill and hardness of the ground but for so long. In the meantime, Claire was totally bewitched by the sight of Jamie and the girth of his cock in her hand. She applied pressure on her downward stroke, observing as Jamie's hip bucked in response.</p><p>She improved her pace and drank in all the sounds of her man as she did so. His eyes were sealed shut and his wispy dark red eyelashes furled against his face. It wasn't so often that she could look upon a man's face and truly marvel at it. Handsome men were a dime a dozen in this world. And Mrs. Fitz hadn't been wrong when she said that there were many good looking men with robust health here in the Highlands. But Jamie was truly beautiful in its most primordial sense. Her eyes loved to watch him. Whether he was working diligently in the fields, or working with the horses, or prone before her as she wrenched his cock rhythmically in her fist.</p><p>She scooted up, ignoring the protest of her knees against the wool and solid stone. Bolting her fingers to his base and inclining his cock forwards, she acquainted herself with the vinous musk of him. His hairs resting there tickled her nose but she went on until she finally pressed her lips to his skin and kissed him in an act of consecration. Her tongue rode the bulging lines of his veins and pirouetted around his head where her lips sealed, her tongue uncoiling against it.</p><p>Jamie let out an exclamation in Gaelic.</p><p>She didn't think she could take him in fully. His size was commendable- the largest she'd ever beheld, and she'd not pleasured a man in what felt like an incalculable period. She determined that she would get better the more she did this with him. And she very much intended for there to be repeat performances in the future.</p><p>She took as much in as she could, sufficing for what was left by cupping his balls in her hand and massaging them. Her other hand followed the pattern of her mouth, settling around the remainder of his length and working in rotating motions. It was a messy amalgamation of noise and touch. And it was arousing beyond reason.</p><p>As her efforts grew more intense, her curls sprung forth and began inhibiting her fellating motions. She sputtered- damn it. </p><p>"Jamie," Claire said on a gasping breath, "Gather my hair for me please."</p><p>Her Scot was a world away. His eyes stutteringly blinked open and he stared dumbly at her until his functions caught up to him. Two hands roved through her riot of hair until he collected each curl and held it back against her head for her.</p><p>"Shall I hold it like this, mo nighean donn?" </p><p>"You ought to tell me what those words mean, Jamie."</p><p>He laughed and his cock bobbed in her hand. </p><p>"It means my brown haired lass." he stroked her scalp and she couldn't believe he could act so tenderly at a time like this, "Ye've the bonniest hair I've ever seen."</p><p>"But it's merely brown."</p><p>"Nay. No' mere in any sense of the word. 'Tis free and wild, as ye are, silk between my fingers, like yer skin, and-" he gasped when Claire squeezed him with appreciation, "-W-when the light catches it, 'tis like a burn on a bonny summer's day, water rustling," Claire ducked back down, "H- ach- mo graidh- oh god-  the sun shining on the dark ruffling stream... <em>Claire- yer mouth</em>." His words were swallowed up by his groan.  </p><p>The noises her mouth made against his cock was positively raucous. She felt so pleasurably filthy with her curls clutched like this in his strong hands, him at the mercy of her tongue, lips, and throat. She dreamt momentously of him standing broad and tall on his feet, herself lowered to his knees, him using her mouth like she were a whore, rutting into her while he held her face still, forcefully but not painfully. Her thighs grew more slippery by the instant and a desperate moan of her own escaped her when she clenched on emptiness. How well he would stretch and fill her when the time came on the trails of eventuality. Her own slimmer and now, she realized, inadequately girthed fingers would have to do later. What she wanted- needed right now- was to give Jamie what he deserved, what he'd been denying himself since their courtship began.</p><p>She freed his cock from her throat and flattened her thumb against his frenulum and rubbed over it in short tight circular motions. She opened her eyes to savour every element of his undoing. His turquoise were cast on her, raptured in full ignition. His eyebrows creased and his breaths came out in broken quivers. She felt his balls contract in her other busy hand.</p><p>Jamie's teeth gnashed and his thighs began rattling.</p><p>"Ach- Oh Dhia- Mo Chridh- Sassenach!" her Viking sobbed and wrung her hair tight enough to tear her scalp as his fingers clenched against her skull.  </p><p>His climax erupted throughout him volcanically.</p><p>The first spurt took Claire by surprise. She gasped as a spritz of white landed in her skirts. The second splattered across her breasts, hot and treacly, and the rest followed, shooting across her bodice and painting the fabric with ropes of pale glistening cream. Each spurt grew gentler in velocity until the remainder of his release was tumbling down her fingers like fountains of pearl.    </p><p>For the life of her, she couldn't stop stroking him, captivated unceasingly by the pleasure on Jamie's face. He was seizing, his curls rocking about his head, his breath escaping him violently. His cock was spasming even after Claire gently released him. His hands fell out of her hair and trembled at his sides. She hummed, mesmerized as she smeared his seed with her fingers. She never let a man do that before. But she was proud to be marked by Jamie. </p><p>She watched as his cock softened and laid against his body like a seashell nuzzled in the glittering gold sand. </p><p>"Claire..." Her name came dazedly from Jamie's lips. His face was dark as beetroot. He looked aghast almost. "Are ye...alright?" </p><p>"Of course I'm alright," Claire scoffed. "What?" </p><p>"I just- I'm sorry," he spluttered timidly, his hand shuffling as though he wanted to grope her and push her away at the same time. He roughly pulled his kilt back over his thighs. Oh dear, he really <em>was</em> ashamed. </p><p>"What on earth are you apologizing for?" Claire became concerned.</p><p>"I dinna mind using yer mouth. And by god it's a beautiful wicked mouth ye have. But- I've spilled my seed all over ye," Jamie gesticulated uncomfortably. "And yer dress."</p><p>Claire looked down at herself and laughed in endearment towards him. He wasn't ashamed of receiving fellatio, at the least. Only he could be so gentlemanly after he just had his cock in a woman's mouth and inquire after her comfort. Not that Claire held herself in the regards of just any woman. She knew she was more to Jamie than that.</p><p>She felt the ache in her knees as she rose to her feet and walked across the room to gather a rag and she dipped it in the pot of water that had been boiling earlier in the day, now lukewarm and ready to be dumped out. She dabbed the stick residuals off her skin and from between her fingers. Her dress would have to be laundered- self laundered of course- and she had a spare in a trunk where she kept supplementary outfits in case her patients soiled the clothes they arrived in while under her care.</p><p>"I'm refusing your apology because you've done no wrong. I enjoyed it very much and I wanted that to happen, Jamie. If I had had other concerns I would have deposited your seed elsewhere." She neglected to convey that she meant swallowing. "You told me you had not lived as a monk. Surely someone else has done this for you before? Some other lucky 'lass'?" Claire turned her head back to Jamie, who sat unmoving on the cot. </p><p>"No," he answered, "I ne'er let a lass touch me to the point of- weel. Ye ken. Ye're my first, Claire." His naturally ruddy skin now glowed with a rosier pink as he blushed. "It felt..."</p><p>"Good?" Claire tilted her head.</p><p>"'Good' isna suitable enough a word. Nay, 'twas more like my own heart would burst right inside me. That's how it feels when ye touch me, lass. No' just my cock. But anywhere. Feels like ye could reach right through me and cradle me or tear me apart. Sometimes I'm wishin' ye'd do both at the same time. Dinna understand it."</p><p>He was growing sleepy. She could tell by way of his voice sinking deeply into his Scottish burr and his eyelids sweeping up and down in languor.</p><p>She walked back to him and kissed his temple. He grunted in thanks.</p><p>"It feels like that for me too. Tired, are you?"</p><p>"Aye. Ye wore me oot fair enough. Ye. The heilan coos. My damned uncles wi' their plottin' and consortin'."</p><p>"Hold a moment- did you say cows?" Claire said with a giggle.</p><p>"Och- ah- I'll avtae... tell ye.. all aboot it.." </p><p>His eyes grew droopy and in one fell heap, he collapsed backwards onto the cot.</p><p>She didn't know whether it was a trick of the light or her delirium from bringing him pleasure those moments before but it appeared as though there was a small and sweet half-smile framed upon his sleeping face.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It could be comparable to the duties of a painter, Jamie reckoned. Tending to the land to repurpose it required no less technical understanding than that of an artist using brushstrokes to capture the likeness of objects and people, to convey shadow and light from the imagination as one had seen with their own eyes in real time. It was only within these junctures of time that he very much felt like one of the greats his mother used to muse about, her ardency for artwork prominently folded in his memories of her.</p><p>The wood of the rake felt sturdy like a paintbrush in Jamie's grasp as he rocked the prongs over the dirt. Artistry demanded implicit devotion to an outcome that wouldn't be brought to fruition until the future. Tenacity was a requisite. An artist must harness the ability to circumvent error when it approached and remain steady in hand despite aberrations.  </p><p>An artist had to unconditionally love their subject, his mother taught him.</p><p>Just as a man working the land must love the land as they'd love a woman. </p><p>A smile smoothed Jamie's concentrated features as he thought of Claire. The pattern of his focused rhythm petered out to gentle swaying. The act of working manure into the soil was less becoming than a brush twirling in glossy hues of paint, though. Jamie smirked and chuckled beneath his breath. </p><p>"What are ye smiling about?" Murtagh asked, a scant pace away. </p><p>"I'm working," Jamie answered, "Is that no' cause for joy?"</p><p>"We're shoveling shite." </p><p>The dusky heavens foretold that they'd encounter sheer clusters of drizzle throughout the day. The air curled ever so stately around them, carrying the scent of pine and the putrid aroma of aged dung. But the men were congregated in great humor today. Dougal had gone bee hunting the week before and Mrs. Fitz gleefully prepared honey glazed bannocks for the men, the sweet rich topping adequately substituted for the stale flavor of the oat cake. It was all the men chattered about in the morning when they weren't licking their fingers. Then Rupert had proclaimed once they arrived into the fields that in his flask was Colum's rhenish that he nicked from the night of the great banquet and the workers all clamored about, indulging themselves with a swig of the wine. </p><p>A fine drink never did do injury to a Scot. </p><p>They went about today with no more than a murmur's worth of complaint. Too busy laughing and shoveling and raking. And when they weren't doing that, they were completing a number of other tasks- some mason work here and there- various repairs that should've been started on last week, herding the flocks of sheep and goats, feeding the poultry, and seeing to it that no critters had dug up any seeds that were sown.</p><p>Transports came in today from the township of Cranesmuir. Dougal had arranged with a local apothecary for seedlings for Claire's garden and herbs for her to transplant. There were carts loaded into the courtyard with new barrels of seed that Jamie purchased with the budget permitted to him from Leoch's treasury as Master-of-Agriculture. They spent nearly an hour sorting and coordinating which seeds belonged to which plots. The crofters were delegated to operate the seeding drills and the other clansmen went onwards, working the last bit of land over for the week.</p><p>"Do ye no' love the smell of it though, a goistidh?" Jamie sniggered. "Nothing like putting muck back into the earth. Tis' the earth it comes from leastways. We feast on the vegetation and out it comes from the nether end. 'Tis nay more than a gift of thanks for nature's fine provisions."</p><p>"Ye sound like yer father," Murtagh said. "I once caught him saying a funny prayer after bending over and harvesting. Dinna ken all the words but 'twas something about blessings and clarity."</p><p>"Aye, aye," Jamie hummed, "I ken the one ye're meaning. My Da taught it to me when I was a wee lad. It went as this. 'Beannachdan, talamh. Beannachdan dha gach sìol. Beannachdan ris an fhoghar. Beannachdan ris a ’ghrèin. Agus chun na gealaich. Agus gu na nèamhan. Bho far a bheil an t-uisge a ’dòrtadh. Beannachdan o Dhia, gum bi e an-còmhnaidh a ’toirt dhuinn an fhearann.'"</p><p>"What a funny thing to thank god for," Angus chimed in. "I'm no' much of a pious man, I admit. I am grateful tae the lord for each day I wake an' such but  when ye say a prayer o'er land, 'tis a bit o' a s I did think to thank the lord overmuch, I wouldna be thanking him for dirt. I'd be thanking him for the warmth of a woman's bosom and the sweet burn o' whiskey and ale."</p><p>The other men laughed riotously.</p><p>"Ye can thank the lord for that as weel, I'm sure," Murtagh added quite seriously.</p><p>Their bellies were gorged with hoots and hollers.</p><p>"I'll be thanking god for the day we finally see the harvest and I dinna have to get my sark and jacket mocket anymore," Willie pipped once the noise quieted out. "I'm right scunnered from sun op to sun doon. No' meaning disrespect to ye of course, Mr. Fraser. I'm a dedicated worker."</p><p>Jamie stabbed his rake into the soil and stepped over an untouched manure pile to heartily clap his hand upon the lad's shoulder. "Aye ye are but that's no' how this works, lad. The land never stops needing to be seen after. Ye work twice as hard after the first harvest so that the land doesna regress to the state it was afore. Harvest is reward for yer hard labor. Once ye start lollygagging and dawdling, ye'll regret it. Sooner or later. And of course there's the matter of the British. There's nay rest in this."</p><p>Rupert spit into the ground and Angus parroted him. </p><p>"Back to work, to lot o' ye," Murtagh ordered so Jamie didn't have to.  </p><p>He had taken it upon his self to inform the men of the Redcoat army making their way to Leoch in just a month's time, approximately the end of next. They had taken to the news just about as well as he had. There was an audible rouse of disconcert, throwing of the arms, and gawking of the mouths. A fair amount of swearing and damning as well.</p><p>Divided by clan they may be, but a tie that bound all Highlanders together was their contempt towards the British and what they had done to their people and the land. Their blood thrummed with generations of a suppressed people, and a longing for a freedom of a time long past- before the Continental Wars- a time that now felt no more mystical than the tales of kelpies, changelings, and sirens.</p><p>There was a fighting spirit that belonged only to the people here. It was kindred in its most remarkable sense. It couldn't be found among any other people, even in the other parts of the world that Jamie had visited during his studies. The men and women of Prussia, France, and Italia had so clearly sprung from different blood. Perhaps its likeness could be found in Scandinavia, where most Highlander's ancestors hailed, their Viking connection distant but no less evident in shared traditions and beliefs. </p><p>Jamie encouraged shrewdness nonetheless. He swayed the men to commit to their work in faith that it would abate their tense feelings and it had. There was naught that could be done other than to prepare as best as they could.</p><p>On this basis, he could not think of if the Redcoats had stopped at Lallybroch for an impromptu collection of goods. He couldn't think of if Jenny had been put through any abuse, or the weans. If his father laid helpless and ailed in bed, powerless to soothe the cries of his family. If Ian had been in a different village performing tasks that had customarily been reserved for Jamie, so there was no man of the house to protect the estate. He couldn't think ahead of the future- of Colum wanting him to betray Claire's trust- of what else his request could lead to.</p><p>The land was here and it needed to be seen to and that's what they would do. They would carry on in good judgment and do their best to not make hasty mistakes.</p><p>The latter half of the work day was spent on the saddle, Donas' taut muscles and silken fibers of his black coat a soothing familiar friction between Jamie's thighs. He was growing well accustomed by now, to the roughness of the earth here. There was so much beauty to the land but it would be lost to the naked eye of a foreigner. Even he had looked down upon it when first he arrived. It was in a shoddy state at the start of things. But the change in weather washed over the land, and sprouted new colors that hadn't been there before.</p><p>Jamie observed with an artist's eye as his mother taught him, the watercolor strokes of green, blue, and yellow, gathered together as he rode along by.</p><p>The Mackenzies had surmounted this impossible territory and became the largest and most powerful clan in Highlander history. His mother was a part of this legacy, and for that, Jamie allowed himself to feel a smidgen of prideful spirit, for that history belonged to him as well.       </p><p>He took Donas into the northern sector of land to survey the coming along of it. The refortified enclosures for the livestock acted as a demarcation that bordered the animals from the vulnerable regrowth of the land. Jamie jooked the reigns, slowing Donas down to a dignified trot as he road along the fencing. He greeted "Ho!" to the cowhands and they reciprocated in affable Gaelic.</p><p>The cows were mooing and bustling about. Jamie noticed that one of the cattle was tramping alongside them on his hemisphere of the fence. He reckoned if he parted his dossan he would be able to see the cow's eyes watching him and Donas. He was seeking affection, a friendly creature as Highland cows tended to be, and Jamie maneuvered to lean down to stroke the cow along its ears and minding it horns.  </p><p>The cow craned his neck under the attention and basked in it. His fur was freshly oiled, the sheen sparkling on Jamie's fingers when he drew his hand back. He rubbed his hand against the leather of his coat.  From the corner of Jamie's eye, he could see the long black tress of Donas' tail, swishing in disapproval at Jamie's actions with the cattle. He laughed to himsef and obliged his horse with a tickle behind his withers. </p><p>In the upcoming week, the watchdogs would be delivered to mind and herd the animals. It was being delivered by a Lewis Mackenzie, a distant cousin who lived in a village a short trek away from Port Skye. He manned the customs registrations officially but in his spare time he ran a breeding mill for dogs both security and domestic. Dougal assured him that he would deliver the best dogs to man the inquisitive cows when the cowhands retired for the evening and night. </p><p>He rode Donas onwards, overlooking the planting of the grains that he expected and hoped would blossom into fields of barley and oats. The land developed and set aside for grazing seemed to be coming along as well. Jamie swelled to see that it was so. He and the men had done well with the planting. Despite his lifelong experience with farming, Jamie never allowed his accomplishments and expertise to obscure the importance of humility towards the land.</p><p>Jamie guided his horse to the water well he knew was built in the midst of a field of heathers growing slanted against the hillside further steps away from the planting grounds. He dismounted once he reached the stone base and docked his horse to the pole someone had been canny enough to build for horses. With the rain coming this time of the year, the well would always be nourished with water. And- thank christ- there was a pail resting at the base of the well. Jamie notched it under his arm and pumped the well. </p><p>"Ye've been exceptionally cooperative taeday," Jamie remarked to his black beast, "Treat yerself to a bucket, aye?"</p><p>While his horse nursed his gullet while he trudged over to the thick stalks of heather that seemingly awaited his touch. His mother once told him that as a child she would lay in the widest field of heather. Her lungs would fill with its mossy scent and her mind would stop spinning and finally settle. It was a dear thing to imagine as he brushed his fingers adoringly over the pastel and dark blend of purples.</p><p>Before he knew it, he had walked along the entire river of plants. At the very end, an oddball faction of growth caught his sharp wandering eye. Jamie stopped in his steps and gasped in awe. White heather!</p><p>He made a quick work of unsheathing his dirk, as he had no shears on him, and ran the edge along the stems to free the small cluster from the purple bunch. He raised it up to the wispy silver of the skies. It was pure white heather indeed. Oh, what exquisiteness. His finger pet the soft snow-white prickles and he brought it to his nose. The floral aroma drifted up his nostrils and Jamie whispered a hasty prayer and tucked it gingerly into his sporran.</p><p>The air encircling him began to chill. He felt a harsh breeze muss his curls, the back of his scalp feeling exposed and no longer protected by the thicket of coils that usually draped around it.</p><p>He ached immediately for the company of his woman. He knew Claire would be working in her garden by this hour. She disclosed her schedule to him amid peppers of kisses against his mouth in the alcove along the exit leading to the courtyard this morning. <em>Come find me if time allows for it. </em>              </p><p>Donas galloped like the earth was aflame beneath his hooves across the glens and crags, Jamie carefully rerouting away from the southern regions of land that the men were working and detouring for a discrete ascent up the span of hill to Claire's garden. He tautened the reins and slowed Donas at a few hundred feet to a dainty trot and fastened him to the same tree he saw Elspeth was. He brushed his knuckles against the cinnamon snout of his former horse and left the two steeds to converse amongst each other. </p><p>She was kneeling down, her body spread into a prowling position above her grounds when he came upon her. Her ruffles of dark curls were confined into a bun but the exuberant wind had rumpled it. He loved it resistant and imperfect like that. He'd never seen hair be so spirited. He fought the temptation to trail his fingers up the nape of her neck and twirl one of her diaphanous strands around them. She was so beautiful in her brown homespun dress and knitted shawl while her arms, pale as cream, protruded as she rifled over her grounds.   </p><p>She was humming in a vague undertone in French. Her voice was sweet as berry and his ears pinkened as he imagined what it would feel like to be pressed upon her bare bosom, her delicate fingers stroking his face as she sang and her voice undulated through her soft skin.  </p><p>"Mo nighean donn," Jamie cherished aloud.  </p><p>Claire's singing stopped abruptly.  </p><p>"Jamie!" she turned her head to him and started. "You gave me a fright. You're like a bloody cat. How long were you standing there?" </p><p>He chuckled. "No' long. I left Donas wi' Elspeth, seeing as I kent ye'd be here among yer wee herb garden. Yer voice is sae lovely, Sassenach. I didna ken ye had the gift."</p><p>Claire scrambled to her feet and dusted the dirt off the lower portions of her dress. Her skirts were stained with grass marks where her knees had pressed the fabric into the ground.</p><p>"You could hear me? But I was so quiet. And it's blasted windy today." She gestured to her hair in example.</p><p>"Aye, but my ears are verra keen. Yer cadence would be hard to miss. 'Tis a discoverable delight."</p><p>She accepted the compliment with a kind smile.</p><p>"My uncle used to say I had a voice fit for the stages. He once made me stand on a trunk and serenade his fellow diggers an an excavation site. It turned out by uncle had been swanking his niece's vocal abilities to the men for days. I only agreed to do it because I wasn't one to be proven wrong and I wanted to rise to the occasion. I suppose I'm still very much the same in that regard." She ended that note on a self-pleased chuckle.</p><p>"Ye'll have to sing for me one day. Mayhaps when I'm fratchety and bone-weary, and I shall be needing to have my ears soothed wi' melody."</p><p>"And what shall I sing to you, Fraser?" </p><p>"I shall fancy something bawdy. And in French."</p><p>That made Claire toss her head back and laugh heartily. Her cheeks were as round as apples from how hard she beamed.</p><p>"Oh, I've an arsenal of those," she promised on a giggling exhale. "I wouldn't have presumed you were someone who prefers to be scandalized by mellifluous means."  </p><p>"I'm no'," Jamie professed smilingly, "I've just a verra motivating muse."</p><p>Claire shook her head, effectively charmed and knelt back to the ground to continue her gardening.  </p><p>Minding his size, he appropriated his self with care so he could step inside her enclosure without bringing any harm to her planting grounds. He simply wanted to be close to her, to have his eyes stowed upon the custom of her work. There was a spectacular intimacy to it that could've moved him to possess jealousy towards the earth for experiencing her intricate caresses that were foreign to him were he not so enthralled with watching her whenever he had the chance to.</p><p>The older partitions were splintered and thin and coarse as straw. The condition they were in was utterly unacceptable and Jamie had taken it upon himself personally to heed Claire's desires and build reliable partitions harvested from maple and sawed down to long even cuts and fashioned into dividers and barriers for each herb group. There was more he wanted to do for the garden but the time had not yet come for that. He awaited that time in the interim, having his own slew of duties to care for in the day-to-day.</p><p>What mattered to him was Claire was pleased well enough with the changes that were occurring before her eyes. And after what seemed like eternity, the soil was ready to be seeded. She was right overjoyed when Dougal returned from the village with a crate of the seeds she ordered. It was the first time Jamie beheld such a display of excitement from her. She was not a woman averse to animation, but Claire was often ceremonious, save for her tongue that was sharper than a sabre and for when she was driven by irritation towards some thing or another.</p><p>But here, in her garden, she was incontestably happy in this state.</p><p>Jamie had a lovely recollection of when she first spoke of her passion and pride for it. Under Colum's reign or not, this morsel of land was deeply special to her. </p><p>Her hands moved in concurrent focus and ease as she drew long furrows into the soil with a hand fork and reached into one of the sacks of seeds and dispersed them evenly in single lines. She was following the diagram they had devised together- though Claire did the bulk of the organizing with it being her garden and such- with a predetermined destination for every plant group.</p><p>Jamie watched as she cupped another pile of dark seeds in one hand and with her thumb and forefinger, laid them out in the next furrow. He thought he found her gardening to be just as compelling to watch as her physicking was, for it was<em> her</em>, and the cause of her delight. He was glad for it.  </p><p>"Have you an appetency for staring at me gardening or are you intending to help me, Fraser?" Claire sounded without glancing up. </p><p>"If that should please ye," Jamie retorted with a half grin.</p><p>"Hmm," Claire paused to consider it. A benevolent breeze swept through one of her wayside curls. Her eyes raised and leveled with Jamie's hands which were tucked in a default clutch beneath his belt. "No. Your hands are much too big." </p><p>"Are they?" Jamie raised one his hands and wiggled them as if he never saw his hands before. "Ye seem fine taken to the size of my hands on other occasions, Sassenach. Ye've never complained afore about my nimble my fingers are. And ye've had the opportunity to quite a few times."</p><p>He saw her ears rouge like roses in full bloom. He wasn't intending to rile her up but he couldn't stop himself from making the double entendre. </p><p>"Come to think of it, now that you mention nimbleness, I might have to take you up," Claire recovered with a devilish grin, "I do seem to recall you have experience sowing seeds. Just be careful not to get any on my clothes. Or yours for that matter."  </p><p>Jamie's front crumbled at his feet and he involuntarily choked. It was his turn to crimson hard enough that he felt his skin might melt.</p><p>"Ye said ye didna mind-" he started.</p><p>"And I meant it," Claire affirmed before he could finish, "I'm only jesting. Now. On your knees, Fraser." </p><p>She scooted over and beckoned him to join her. Her frame was comparatively smaller than hers and yet he still felt the aura of her command here. He acquiesced eagerly. The dirt was fuzzy against his knees and traces of dampness lingered from the fine particles of rain moistened his skin. </p><p>There were a few dozen small bags of seeds positioned to Claire's left. </p><p>"I'm planting roots first. They require the longest growth period so I wanted to expedite that. These here are echinacea, ginger, ginseng, valerian, goldenseal, and turmeric. They're rather pricey and frequently in need so I'm quite looking forward to being in personal charge of my own supply of medicinal roots.</p><p>"What is goldenseal, Sassenach? That doesna sound like the name of a wee herb."</p><p>"It treats a multitude of ailments but I prefer it for antiseptic and, when distributed in the appropriate dosage, it is exceptional for treating gastric complications such as diarrhea. It's seldom recommended for treatment because it can be mishandled and cause various irritations in both the bowels and ono the skin. Few healers have mastered the perfect administration to patients."</p><p>"And that exception includes ye. That's braw," Jamie said in a reverential tone. "Shall I lay these out same as ye?" The extent of his farming knowledge stretched fathomlessly into the horizon of his conscience and yet he knew there was always something different that he could learn from Claire. He'd never grown roots before, save for ginger and garlic. </p><p>She demonstrably placed seedlings in his hands and with no more than a few simple utterances of instruction, he peppered the soil with the seedlings. They thereafter spent the hour dispensing what Claire referred to as 'traditional medicinal herbs'.</p><p>They made a trivia of it. Claire pronounced the names in Anglo and Jamie had to reciprocate in Latin. Some he knew well enough already. Lavender- <em>Lavandula augustifolia</em>, chamomile- <em>anthemis nobilis</em>, poppy- <em>papaver rhoeas</em>, and rosemary- <em>rosmarinus officiinalis</em>. There were others that bypassed him. Feverfew, foxglove, pennyroyal, lady's mantle, yarrow, and so on. Claire's eyes were alight throughout and her laughter each time he had answered her incorrectly sang right to his heart. </p><p>He didn't mind getting some of the translations incorrect. He'd fumble each one if it meant she'd keep letting those bonny giggles out.</p><p>Not caring that his hands were caked with dirt and that he possibly reeked of faint traces of manure, Jamie took her face in a loving caress and plonked a loud kiss on her lips. </p><p>"Oh," Claire said softly, as though she were surprised.</p><p>Her mouth spread to a large grin and she requited his kiss. Her mouth bore the remnants of fresh ale and honey, a sweet flavorful concoction. He hummed as her body squirmed against his for shelter from the gale bustling against them from the west. The air was changing gradually, foretelling a very wuthering evening and night.</p><p>Jamie welcomed her into the haven of his arms, his own heart beating temperately as she behaved like a kitten and mewled softly against him.   </p><p>"Ye've a tusselheid here." He pinched his fingers around a stray verdant leaf that caught in one of the curls that curtained around her shoulder and showed her.</p><p>"Sempervirens," Claire said, taking the leaf from him and discarding it behind her. "Latin for-"</p><p>"Aye, I ken. Evergreen. These trees are about as auld as the first dawn of the day the earth has ever seen, Sassenach. They're grown everywhere in the Highlands. I've something tae show ye." Keeping her cozy against his side with one arm, he dipped his other hand into his sporran, prying the leather open and rustling its internal contents about until he felt the telltale tickle of heather against his finger tips. He presented it to Claire with a triumphant sigh. "Ye ken what this is?"</p><p>Claire sat up and grasped the flowers by their stems. She made a distinctive noise of recognition. </p><p>"Of course. Ericaceae. It's heather. Although I've never seen it in white. I didn't know it grew in this shade. It must be a rare mutation. Where did you find this?"</p><p>She returned to her place at his side, twirling the flowers delicately between her thumb and forefinger.</p><p>"'Twas when I was doing my rounds of surveying, checking the seeding grounds and looking for evidence of any predators and suchlike. Ye ken how rodents and wee animals take to gardens. The fences are keeping them out. I've patrollers watching over each plot throughout the day but it's best to see after things wi' yer own eyes, ken. Finally I take Donas up to a water well near a wide bed of heather and as I'm walking along the path I see it at the verra end. A small patch, nay more than few inches. Pure white."   </p><p>"What compelled you to remove it from the bushel?" </p><p>Jamie stretched his legs out cautiously so as not to disturb the seeds.</p><p>"There is a legend that every Highland child is brought into this world hearing from their mam or da or kin. Thousands of years ago there lived a young maiden, nay more than a bairn's age, her name was Malvina, and she was the daughter of the finest poet in all the glens. Her heart was set upon a lad in a different clan named Oscar. Oscar's heart belonged to hers all the same. They had plans to wed. But Oscar was summoned to battle, to fight for his clan. He served his family name and clan wi' devotion and honor and was horribly killed in the fight."</p><p>"Oh lord," Claire's voice was small, both enchanted and dismayed at the story. </p><p>"Malvina had waited and waited. But she soon learned that her beloved would never return home. A messenger had informed her and she spent her days and nights, wailing and sobbing, for her heart was truly broken. Puir Malvina trudged mournfully through the lands and every tear she cried rained down upon the heather. It's said that her sorrow was so great that her tears turned the purple flowers into white ones. 'Twas in that verra moment that Malvina declared that whoever should chance upon white heather would ken naught but good fortune for the remainder of their days."</p><p>Claire brought the flower to her lips, same as he had done earlier. </p><p>"Is that why you picked it?" she asked him softly. "Do you believe in it?"</p><p>Jamie took a moment to considered his motive for picking the flower and squeezed her side with affection. His Sassenach was a strict pragmatist. Their upbringings charted their cultural beliefs in opposite directions. He was well educated and traveled, but he was a Scot in blood, bone, and creed. </p><p>"No Highlander would pass by white heather wi'out picking it," he murmured in explanation. "It's believed that it grows where blood has no' been shed. Many Highlander war chiefs head to battle wi' a spray of white heather sewn into their tams, tucked into their belts, or clipped to their weapons. For protection and good luck. It's tradition that should ye find white heather, ye present it to yer lady and she does the ritual for ye."</p><p>From this intimate angle, Claire reminded him of the virgin mary, face cast down in saintly meekness. Her skin was as pale and bright as a full moon on a pitch dark night. His eyes studied the straight bridge of her nose, and the rather adorable buds of her nostrils. The soft light of the day shimmered on her high cheekbones. Her lips pertly stuck from her face, two mounds of supple beauty. He couldn't believe the words that came out of her mouth sometimes. But he liked it very much.</p><p>Jamie's fingers skated beneath the clean edge of her jaw and angled her face upwards to face him. Her eyes, usually pale like blue agate, were rich and dark as lapis, and they were staring directly into his. </p><p>"I am your lady," she said with fervid promise.</p><p>"Aye, ye are," he accepted her vow in unwavering confidence. </p><p>He was deeply in love with her. So much so it should cause his heart to weep. He didn't know when he could tell her. When he could peel open his heart and give her the secrets buried within its chambers. God. How he loved her.  </p><p>His lips skimmed across her forehead with a kiss.</p><p>Suddenly, his ears seized a stray current of sound in the near distance. His arm muscles locked around Claire.</p><p>"What is it?" she whispered. </p><p>Jamie's head inclined towards the direction the sound was coming from. Hoof beats, its cadence foretold. Neither Donas' nor Elspeth's. It fluttered just above the thrum of nature haloing them. A softer hiss began echoing across the earth after. An unexpected arrival. A man, certainly. </p><p>He drew Claire's face in close and kissed her quickly.</p><p>"Someone's coming, Claire." </p><p>No further explanation was needed. She gasped softly and rose to her full height and scurried a respectable distance away from Jamie, doing her best to discipline her flustered expression to a play on casual disposition. Jamie did the same, reaching for the hand fork Claire had been using before.</p><p>"How far apart should ye like the furrows to be this time, Mistress Claire?" he said loudly in passable formality. He expected their intruder to make their self known in just a couple of seconds.</p><p>"No more than six inches apart, Fraser," she nodded to him, "These seeds need approximately thrice their diameter of growing space each. And you shouldn't dig them too deep. I don't want the seeds to drown once it comes time to water them. They're furrows, not dams. Oh-" Her voice abruptly changed. "Dougal Mackenzie, what on earth brings you here?"</p><p>So that's who their interloper was. His damned War Chief uncle.</p><p>Jamie sat back on his haunches. </p><p>"Dougal," he nodded cordially.</p><p>"Jamies," Dougal retorted. He spared no inquiry as to why he was there when he was supposed to be out with the men right now. It became swiftly apparent that his focus had been too oriented on Claire to pay the oddity of Jamie's placement much mind. </p><p>"Mistress Beauchamp, we have need of yer services."</p><p>"Whatever for?" Claire situated her hands on her hips. "I'm working at the moment."</p><p>"Not today. Tomorrow." </p><p>"What's happening?" Jamie asked, dusting his hands and standing up. He exceeded his uncle in height and could see Dougal forcibly tame the flutter of his eyelashes as he accommodated his view of his height up close. </p><p>"We're going hunting, nephew. Meself and a party of about a dozen and a half men. I'll be leading the party. Usually my best man for the job is Arthur McAndrews but weel, none other than the Sassenach here has ordered him to bedrest."</p><p>Jamie glanced over at Claire and noted a mark of indentation between her eyebrows.</p><p>"Well yes," She spoke up, "McAndrews has a nasty infection of the gums. He couldn't possibly focus on hunting, let alone moving his jaw to eat, drink, and speak. It was swollen and bleeding. He had to have some teeth pulled in order to alleviate infection and inflammation."</p><p>"There's nay need to babble aboot wi' yer doctorin' speech," Dougal griped. "The point being, we're one man short. One verra important man, mind ye's. And we're to stock up on meats for the British and we must replenish Leoch's venison supply." The War Chief fixed a look of assessment on Jamie. "What say ye, Fraser lad? Ye're young and I can tell from yer build that ye're agile and sharp." He pat Jamie on the arms and chest, his hands thumping against his compact surface. "Ye must surely make a braw hunter."     </p><p>"I am. 'Tis I who leads the parties through our hunting grounds on our estate." It was custom for the Laird of the property to be the one guiding and forming delegations during game seasons. But Jamie had been bearing that responsibility for a few years now in place of his father.</p><p>"Ah, I see. Ye must do things differently in Clan Fraser," Dougal commented. His underhanded inference soured like the aftertaste of bitter ale. "Fair shot, are ye?"</p><p>"Wi' rifles and shotguns, aye. But I prefer a bow and arrow at times. Guns are too loud and the margin for error is wide depending on yer territory. One misfire and ye let the entire herd and other potentials ken that there's danger afoot. Arrows are swift and quiet. Even if ye dinna pierce them fatally straightaway, the wound slows yer target down and eventually ye can finish the deed up close. And, the distinct pattern of the tail of yer arrows mark yer prey. Should ye get lost perchance in a dense forest."</p><p>Dougal's hawk eyes glinted with approval. "Right then. Ye're coming wi' meself and the men. Ye can fill in for Artie McAndrews. Unless ye'd rather be here...sowin' seeds and shucking shite and whatever else it is that ye have the men doing."</p><p>He heard Claire make an exasperated utterance beneath her breath. </p><p>"...I will come along wi' yer men on the morrow," Jamie said. "There's pleasure in hunting and it would be opportune to spend a week or so becoming acquainted with Clan Mackenzie's hunting grounds."</p><p>Behind Dougal, Claire shifted. Her face was as clear as glass. <em>You're going away from me?  </em>The small widening of her eyes and slight downward curve of her mouth said. </p><p>"Have ye ever ridden wi' a hunting party afore, Mistress Claire?" he bared her an infinitesimal look of assurance.   </p><p>"No," Claire shook her head. "Never."</p><p>"When the men go out hunting, sometimes a healer is brought along. Injuries are more likely to occur during these ventures than ye may think, Mistress. Yer talents would be a balm to the risks of game hunting."</p><p>"The lad's right," Dougal interposed. "And it's my brother's most extreme wish that none of our hunters should come to harm just afore the Redcoats are to board. Ye'll be doin' yer duty and let me tell ye lass..." The man took a step closer to Claire and his voice dropped to a frnse timber. "I'm no' looking forward to yer short temperament. So ye'd best bide that fiery tongue o' yers and no' be insertin' yerself past the limits of yer place."</p><p>Cool defiance stretched over Claire's face.</p><p>"My temper is unlikely to hasten under the ruckus of gunshots and whizzing arrows. It's not as though we're collecting credits from people who can't afford to give up all that they depend on for a cause someone more affluent can substitute for." </p><p>Jamie miraculously suppressed the snicker that bubbled in his belly. </p><p>Dougal's eyes glimmered with irritation and his ears- Jamie had just realized they were pointed and elvish, pinned to the sides of his bald head- turned a bold shade of read. He ground his teeth and exhaled.  </p><p>"Finish op and take yer dinner early. Ye're to be awake and in the courtyard afore the arse crack of dawn tomorrow."</p><p>"So I will."</p><p>Dougal routed his attention back to Jamie.</p><p>"James, since ye're coming wi' us, ye'll be retiring from the Mistress's garden and riding wi' me back to yon Leoch. Ye've got to claim yer hunting tools of choice afore the day is out so there's nay mishap wi' the other hunters." </p><p>Jamie looked to Claire, a wordless channel of communication translated through the locking of eyes. She would be fine to finish up on her own here. He may go. Returning her hand fork to her, he imparted <em>I shall see you tomorrow</em> to her with a subtle quirk of his mouth and turned away from her to accompany his uncle.</p><p>"<em>Crìosd!</em>" Dougal exclaimed without preamble. "Where did ye get those flowers from, Mistress Beauchamp?"</p><p>Everyone's eyes landed on the small spray of white heather in Claire's hands. How quickly they'd both forgotten. </p><p>A sense of panic bolted through Jamie's nerves in sharp zig zags as he thought that Dougal might try to wrench them from her hands. Some Highlanders responded to their superstitions ardently.  </p><p>"Oh...these?" Claire raised the posy upwards. "I found it on my way here earlier in the day. I thought it would look lovely in a bouquet on my desk in my surgery."</p><p>"Have ye any idea atall what it means? It's no' meant to be treated like a wee bauble."</p><p>Claire stepped beside the War Chief and Jamie almost thought she hadn't heard a word the man said.</p><p>She twisted the stems into a knot and stood before Jamie. His breath remained at bay, not knowing what it was she intended to do before the iron glare of the War Chief. </p><p>"It bestows good luck to whoever possesses it and shrouds them under protection by the maiden Malvina." She raised the flower and tucked it into the buckle of his Fraser brooch that rested upon the breast of his dark tweed coat. "Wear this on your hunt tomorrow, Fraser. I shall fear you may encounter danger being around nefarious beasts who may seek to cause injury to your person. And of course, you must be wary of the animals in the woods too." </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Everything around her moved with a misty degree of density, unfamiliarity pulsing through her, beneath her, and above her. She laid on her side, as she ordinarily slept, otherwise enveloped in velvety darkness. She knew she was not yet awake, for an ubiquitous heaviness laid against her like the caress of a hand as large as her body, but her senses were flooded with the unusual. </p><p>Like locking your eyes shut after staring at the sun for a moment too long, she made out in the blanket of blackness, an effigy erected at the foot of her bed. It had a head. Shoulders, arms, legs, and presumably feet. It's physiognomy betrayed that it was a man. She was not terrified though she ought to be. The frame was familiar to her. She beckoned its presence and suddenly the nebulous appearance defined itself as her beloved Lamby. </p><p><em>What are you doing awake so early? </em>Her voice was croaky from misuse. She didn't dare ask why he was there, for it was obvious, he was a dream, and when did dreams ever show an obligation to explanation?   </p><p>
  <em>Have you forgotten, bee?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I'm tired. It's much too early. The light of dawn hasn't even touched the earth yet.</em>
</p><p>Uncle Lamb's lanky form rattled with a chuckle. </p><p><em>You are much like your mother. She hated mornings and would give our mother a fuss each day about it.</em> <em><strong>I'd much rather be asleep, Mummy!</strong> She was never one for punctuality in her youth. Much contrast from the organized young lady she eventually became.</em></p><p>It was surely a dream. Lamby never breathed a word about Julia Beauchamp. Could dreams manufacture anecdotes and memories that had never departed from the once living, once breathing? Could dreams manipulate the emotions of the dead? She'd never had an experience like this while plunged into the depths of unconsciousness. How fascinatingly cruel.</p><p><em>Tell me more about my Mum, </em>she said groggily.</p><p>
  <em>Perhaps another time when we've the leisure for it. There are people counting on you, bee. Or have you forgotten? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>If you won't regale me then you'd best leave me to a moment more of rest. The forest and animals will still be there a minute more.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You're going to be rudely awoken if you don't get those muscles moving, bee. Besides, what about your Jamie chap?</em>
</p><p>She pursed her lips with a frown although she felt the pitter patter movement in her belly at the mention of him.</p><p>
  <em>How do you know who Jamie is? You've never even met him!</em>
</p><p>That caressing sensation at last shrunk and laid itself upon her face, tangibly, sweetly. Like he used to do when she was a child still tottling in her single digits, ever curious about the world and never satisfied with his eccentric inconclusive answers. </p><p>
  <em>Because I see him in your dreams, bee. All the time. So up you get. Dawn is breaking soon.</em>
</p><p>The palest light of blue rose behind him until she saw his face as she would always remember it. His muss of brown curls, cropped short and handsomely. His eyes the shade of maple, always lit up with thoughts, his beard that he always grew while they camped for months at excavation sites, and his glasses that she used to pry off his face and wipe the smudges and dust clean with the tail of her shirt so he could keep his hands busy. It made her heart burst. And then he vanished altogether in its volume.</p><p>Claire's eyes opened and she was greeted by the muted tones of an early azure sky that filled the window frames of her room. </p><p><em>Thank you, Uncle Lamb. I miss you,</em> she thought with a fond smile, and tipped her bare toes against the wooden ground. </p><p>There was much to be done today.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Mackenzie woods were redolent of the gothic nature most grim fairytale stories possessed. Scotland's palette was always cool toned throughout the seasons- save for in the summer when the greens were bright and lush- but in the rising hours of the day, the entire earth always seemed to be swept in pale luminance, sometimes washed out lavender, sometimes, dusty blues, and sometimes soft greys.</p><p>The world here felt listless, almost. </p><p>The silver fog that lingered thick around the trees had only just had only just begun to dematerialize. The pines and hickories seemed to be their only friends here, and even they didn't seem too welcoming towards their presence. Perhaps that was due to them being intruders. They were here after all, to trap and slaughter the wildlife and make avail of their meat, bones, skin, and fur. Were the trees protective of its familiar cohabitants? Did they scorn upon man when they rode through each hunting season? </p><p>Elspeth whinnied as though she sensed Claire's wandering thoughts and Claire smiled gratefully at her horse for its equine display of concern. She wished she had mints or carrots to feed her as a treat. She would have to make do with wild herbs and wild berries for now. Her body rocked in rhythmic rise and fall as her horse trotted over the mossy floor.  </p><p>In front of her, Donas' long black tail distractedly swished as he jogged. His master, Jamie, clad in a brown wool coat and a matching lopsided tam, turned his head to flash her a warm smile. Claire's lips rose to mimic his.</p><p>She felt eased by it, and shook her head to jerk herself from her murky thoughts. It was only cloudy and dull outside. There was no need to attach a sullen temperament to it. It didn't need further help.</p><p>Dougal was leading the men deeper into the devouring depths of the woods where there was a space reserved for encampment. They rode for hours now  from the courtyard of Leoch into its woods. The trees had always acted as a backdrop to the Leoch estate, leaving the civilization of man untethered from that of beasts. Uncle Lamb never loved camping overnight in the woods. When they were on foot in the Mongolian jungle, he'd once been bitten by a non-venomous snake in his sleep. <em>Much too dangerous! Too many probabilities! </em>Lamb would warn.</p><p>As the memories of her uncle's admonitions passed through her, Claire understood more and more why her presence was needed during this hunt.</p><p>Dougal's voice was deep as he prattled to Jamie about his finest hour of tynchal hunting. Jamie had retorted with recollections of his own, and how the finest boar hunt of his life was done by none other than his godfather, who as a display of dominance, removed the tusks from the wild hog with his own sgian dubh. Dirk, Claire knew it meant. </p><p>Murtagh rode beside her in his unique way of silence that was louder than any sound in the woods. His visage was ever so crotchety, an amusing juxtaposition to his horse- Cair, she overheard him call it- that seemed to be in good spirits.</p><p>The rest of the men to her south were speaking in short Gaelic sentences. Small directionless talk, no doubt. There was a net of concentration hovering above them all. This wasn't the time for jolly laugh and rowdy speech, not like it had been when they were on the roads collecting credits. They were here to prey and kill and return home.</p><p>Everyone was to break into small composites once they reached camp. Hours earlier Dougal had drilled everyone on what they were to do and where they were to go. His instructions weren't terribly oppressive. It of course was commonplace for the men throughout the year and Jamie himself had bountiful experience in this avenue. It was only Claire who, through half closed eyelids and ear pinching yawns, needed re-clarification a handful of times.</p><p>Dougal assigned Jamie, a chipper blond man named Luke who Claire had never seen at Leoch before, Ioan who was one of the cowhands who also tended the fields under Jamie's command, and herself to his unit. The healer apparently must be with the divided party that consisted of the leader of the hunt. Fortunately Dougal had a liking to Jamie, no matter his intentionally hidden reasons for it, as it meant she would get to be close to him during the course of their stay.</p><p>Murtagh was segregated to another group, sub-led by Rupert Mackenzie, much to his own chagrin. Claire felt she should credit the quiet grouch of a man for at the most, he truly did love Jamie was though it was his own blood that he had sprung from. It was a victory for her, though meager in its capacity, to have one less over-vigilant eye to worry about. </p><p>They followed the War Chief into a vacuum of green with lumps of moss-dusted stone sprawled upon the land. Birdsong twirled between the spaces of trees that scraped the clouds. At the farthest edge of the camping space was a loch that the men intended to use to hunt fish and clean the blood from the animals they skinned later on. </p><p>In a whirlwind of horses tied off and watered, fires lit, torches staked, pallets spread out, and men giving and receiving orders, the camp resembled an operational base not long after they arrived.</p><p>As the men sharpened their daggers, divided their spears, rifles, axes, bow and arrows, baits, snares, and nets among each other, Claire sorted through her medicine bag to check for fresh bandages, gauze, laudanum, needles, rolls of silk threads, tinctures, ointments, powders, surgical knives, alcohol, and balms. She was being meticulous for her own sake. She knew of course that she was exceedingly prepared for any mishaps that should befall the men during their time in the woods. It was a ritual of sorts before each day in her surgery and her mossy grim surroundings of dark trees and busy men would bear no disturbance to it.   </p><p>She glanced up to see Jamie speaking covertly with Murtagh and Dougal. The three exchanged nods and Murtagh clasped a hand on Jamie's shoulder, imparting a brief declaration of goodbye, and gathered his things to join his small group of men he'd be hunting with. Before she knew it, save for two men who remained at the camp to guard their horses and belongings, the band of men were dispersing, traversing towards the west, north, and south, into the aggregation of trees, and seemingly vanishing.</p><p>Her group of men were still speaking. Ioan and Luke stood in noncommittal silence while Jamie and Dougal dominated the conversation. Deciding she'd best stop sitting idle, Claire fastened her medical bag to her and joined them.</p><p>"If that is what the lass should like, Mistress Claire'll shadow me," she caught Jamie saying as she approached the small huddle. </p><p>"So I should," she nodded, standing beside Jamie but keeping her eyes averted from his, for she knew her expression would betray too much to the others.</p><p>"Fine by me," Dougal reaffirmed his lack of fondness for her. "I've nae time to be fashing over a troublesome Sassenach. We'll meet back here in five hours at the latest. If we're lucky, we'll have a good first day. I'd rather ye come back wi' a wee squirrel than naughtin at all, ken."</p><p>The experienced men gripped their muskets and snares and ropes for binding and tramped east into a dense cluster of leaves and bush. Claire looked back and saw Jamie peering at a map before folding it into an impossibly small square and stashing it into his sporran. No eyes left to linger on them, Claire gave him a rather vulnerable smile.</p><p>"Ye're as quiet as a mouse today, Sassenach," Jamie said wryly, "No' so usual of ye." He slid the straps of his buck brown satchel into their silver buckles, patting over the richly aged leather in finality. </p><p>"Well it's hardly day, hardly morning," Claire stifled a yawn. "I confess I'm tired, and I dream of the pillows in my bedroom. Not to mention," she flicked her head about warily, "It's a bit dull, and the woods- they-," she paused as she thought she heard chittering, "Well they don't look the most inviting in this setting, do they?"</p><p>Jamie gave a slow dawning nod, his mouth quirking to the side. </p><p>"Nervous then..."</p><p>"I shouldn't be, I mean I've resided in far less becoming places, and it's not as though I've not been in the thick of the woods before. Oh, bugger. I'm having an unusal day, is all."  </p><p>"Ach.. Dinnae fash, mo nighean donn. I'll no' let any harm befall ye. Ye just stick close," Jamie slinked his arm around Claire's waist, knocking a bit of breath out of her as he pressed her truss against his rock solid body, "The light of day will come. And ye'll be right roused the moment we step foot into those bushes." Quickly he kissed her lips and brushed his finger faintly down her nose, and together they marched.</p><p>Every group was given sectors of ground to cover on the map of Mackenzie woods. In this season, red deer, wild rabbit, and wild foxes were rampant, migrating to this part of the woods to breed and nourish, following the frigid harsh winter spent in burrows and shelters. Jamie noiselessly led her through the hunting grounds of the woods.</p><p>Claire hadn't the faintest idea of what to look for, so she relied on Jamie's guidance and explanations.</p><p>"Animals are nay so different from ye and I. We've patterns and habits and our surroundings tend to reveal what they are. Take this funnel here," Jamie gestured downwards. Claire was surprised to see a subtle pathway of trodden vegetation, "Rabbits run along here regularly. I'll set snares here and a bit more further ahead. We'll return in a few hours, after we try to spot foxes and stags. But chances are, we're no' likely to see anything til tomorrow."</p><p>Branches were stuck into the ground at an angle that resembled teepees, and Jamie wrapped copper wire around the units. They were disguised perfectly among the saplings and shed pine leaves. Claire could see the unsuspecting rabbits hopping across the vegetation at record speed right into the snares, struggling fruitlessly as they awaited their doom.</p><p>The sun was glowing faintly in the thick haze of the skies. It was a blur of circular light, like nickel among the clouds, barely radiant, yet still signifying to the land that morning arrived. Claire saw with her own eyes as they walked onwards, some of the wild growth tickling and turning, stretching to catch any grace of light. </p><p>She wondered if they would run into the other men from their group, and how successful they would be. She reckoned- eventually- that she'd hear the telltale boom of a gunshot and the successive spray of bird wings flapping frantically out of shock as they escaped danger. She unapologetically rooted for Jamie to have the best catch of them all. A stag was the real pride of the hunting season, and she hungered to see Jamie emerge from the woods with a grand deer slung over his wingspan shoulders.</p><p>Jamie was a natural woodsman. It should have come as no surprise to her. But it was exactly so. He was like an elemental creature in this habitat. All aspects of him were primed for this. She found herself having very little words to say, for she could only watch in a trance how he ducked beneath low hanging branches, keeping his gaze on the broadness of land ahead while he cleared a way for her to enter silently, and how he hopped in a miraculous soundless spring over sharp protrusions of stone and stumps. He was scanning their surroundings every moment, if not with his eyes, then with his ears, and nose.</p><p>"We must bide here, Sassenach," Jamie spoke lowly after another hour of walking and tracking. She would have jumped had his hand not been at the base of her spine, gently nudging her to kneel upon a lopsided ant-infested tree that had been felled. </p><p>"Have you found something?" she whispered as delicately as possible. Jamie had conveyed to her the importance of being noiseless while hunting and she made it a conscious commitment. She looked around preemptively but without the gifted hunter's eye she couldn't discern one blot of forest from another.</p><p>"Aye," Jamie said, eyes peering into the distance. She felt her heart rate accelerate with anxiousness. She clutched the strap of her medicine bag. </p><p>"<em>Where</em>?" she demanded. </p><p>Jamie shushed her and raised a hand half-mast. Be still, it meant. </p><p>"'Tis deer habitat we've entered. Dougal and Ioan and Luke must no' be more than a mile and a half ahead of us, scouting similar grounds." </p><p>"What? How do you know?" </p><p>"The gauge of the grass prints tell me. And they're straight in procession and close together, like a buck calmly seeking a place to rest away from the herd. They're no' verra distant from where we are. Duck lower, and breathe softer, mo nighean donn. Even a stray breeze can make it skitter off. Aye. Good. As I was saying, they've been drawn away from the herd, which means they're probably some thirty yards away."</p><p>Claire knew that at best, the human eye could see as far as two miles ahead. Somehow she thought of Jamie as a man of extrasensory abilities and imagined he could see even farther than that. She realized he was setting his bow up and notching an arrow inside. Good lord, did he see it already? He drew the bow back and she watched his entire frame swell with a deep inhale as he concentrated every ounce of tension within his body to his core.</p><p>This was unbelievably nerve-wracking to behold up close.</p><p>He emancipated the softest breath between his lips and let the bowstring go. The arrow flew, a fierce swish cutting cleanly through the air at a velocity of a blink, disappearing sharply into a huddle of green leaves. Seconds later, a small cry confirmed its strike. Jamie rose immediately, loading another arrow into his bow but keeping it poised to the ground. He was going to go after it, she realized. Of course.</p><p>"Jamie-" she quietly blurted. He looked at her questioningly. "Erm, well- it's only- be careful." </p><p>His staid expression melted into a smile. "I'll be fine, Sassenach. Asides, should I be taken by surprise and trampled, I've have ye to stitch me back together."</p><p>Somehow she didn't find that funny. He saw that her concern was not quelled and dislodged his arrow to peel the lapel of his coat outwards to reveal to her the white spray of heather she'd given him yesterday. He then pecked her sweetly and set out for his kill.</p><p>She deliberately tried to wait, intermittently flicking away the beady black ants that had crawled up her hands. She even dug at the dirt beneath the tree, checking its contents for anything she might be able to pack into her medicine bag. She only found poisonous plants and those weren't the useful kinds. She hadn't been keeping track, but time barely seemed to move and if it did move it was going about so languidly that she felt that she was being swallowed up by the force known as anxiety. She was wildly curious. She wanted to obey Jamie but well... she'd never been meek and obedient, after all. All the fine schooling in the world couldn't iron out her stubborn will.</p><p>Sighing in forfeit, she stood up and stepped over the log and followed Jamie's path.</p><p>"Oh bloody hell," she murmured, "You don't even know where he's gone, Beauchamp." </p><p>The woods felt more alive than ever the further she ambled. There were sounds everywhere. Were it not the squeaking of squirrels then it was the chirping of grouse and the disconcerting squawk of ravens. Thankfully there was so little air travel in the day. The wind would've been a confounding disturbance, rousing the trees to susurrate so loud she would be unable to think properly.</p><p>She could have turned back, only she'd forgotten to mark the directions she came from. Lamb had taught her from the time she was younger, that if she ever got lost, she'd best keep moving forward. Trying to find her way back would take twice as long as it would to get to the other edge of the forest. God knew how long that would take, though. The Mackenzie woods seemed boundless. They were the grandest clan in all the Highlands, of course their forests stretched to untold lengths.</p><p>She navigated between the behemoth sycamores, dense hickories, thin birches, and brutish growths of grasses that tickled her ankles and calves, until at last she found a humbly worn path that took her to a small clearing. There stood Jamie, his bow and arrow at ease, a great mass of man in the center of the space. She was given to relief.</p><p>Laughing, Claire approached him hurriedly and then paused when she saw what he was looking at so solemnly.</p><p>It was the deer.</p><p>"Pierced both its lungs," Jamie murmured, giving no mind to the fact that she hadn't remained at the log like he asked her to. "It was erratic at the start, then it stopped its running for a few dozen yards, its tail tucked between its hindquarters and then only just now, about a second afore ye found me, it dropped clean on its side. We're fortunate it didna alert the rest of the herd."</p><p>The arrow was lodged obtrusively in its torso. The deer was wheezing, the arrow rising and falling with each strained breath. Its black wet nostrils flexed and constricted helplessly. It pupils- Claire noticed that the soft light was hitting it in perfect precision, were dilated, its ochre eyes trembling with panic. It was so clearly terrified of the two creatures standing before it. </p><p>It was drowning in its own blood.</p><p>She didn't have to be a hunter to be able to tell. She was a physician.</p><p>A woman of her calibre had rarely taken to squeamish whims. She saw more than a lifetime's worth of blood and exposed flesh. She saw bones splitting through skin, bones snapped in jagged halves, even bones shattered like porcelain hurled across a room in a bursting fit.  She could diagnose organ disease by a mere reflection of the tinge of one's mouth or the scent or urine.</p><p>Watching the animal struggle as its vitality went from it placed an unusually discomforting feeling upon her. She felt despondent. Her heart sympathetically beat for the creature.</p><p>Beside her, Jamie crossed his chest and knelt down. She heard him begin to mutter in Gaelic to the animal.</p><p>"What are you saying?" Claire asked, tentative to disrupt, but overwhelmingly intrigued by his gentle gesture to a creature whose approaching death he was responsible for. </p><p>"'Tis a prayer," Jamie said, his eyes cast on the deer. "It's Celtic custom, to give thanks to god, before yer prey has passed, and to ask that the soul of the prey be delivered to its kin safely. Man slaughters man. Animal slaughters animal. Man slaughters animal. Animal slaughters man. Tis all the same. The animals dinna ken what pleases and displeases the lord, but we men do, and we must not hunt without understanding that we are all of us, himself's creatures. I should think that all things god has made, he loves equally. Killing is a gruesome sin. Even when it must be done."</p><p>Claire became aware that hunting was a serious matter to Jamie, for more complex reasons than she initially believed. He loved to do so, he was well skilled at it, but it came at no insignificant cost. In swiveling balance of killing to feast, was his respect for the lives he took. It was such a humane point of view to have.</p><p>She felt kinship with his feelings, kneeling down as he did, and slid her hand into his where it rest at his side. She felt his fingers firmly close around hers in response.</p><p>"The stag is the mascot of Clan Fraser, meant to bring blessings and kind fortunes," the Scotsman continued ruminatively. "So each time we hunt one, we give thanks to it for its sacrifice, and bid it safe passage. I like to think it's comfort, or something akin to it, for them no' to be alone in their last moments."</p><p>She imagined that were it she who was facing death in the form of a large Viking stranger, with two turquoise eyes of sincerity and respect burning down at her while she lay upon dirt that was dampening with her blood, it would be solace indeed.</p><p>"I would like to pray over it with you, Jamie," Claire softly insisted.</p><p>Led by Jamie's instruction, they uttered a lovely Gaelic orison to the deer and remained with it until it finally passed.</p><p>Merely moments later, the telltale sound of gunfire cracked in the sky, a small distance from them, just as Claire had thought it would. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It was good fortune that none of the men sustained grave injury during the hunt. There were only minor sutures to be made and one nasty foot wound, but nothing that would immobilize the men on their hunt. In fact, they had such bountiful success in the Mackenzie woods that halfway through the week, Dougal proclaimed that they had enough stags, foxes and raccoons for fur trading, grouses, squirrels, and rabbits to satisfy the needs of the British militia and for the residents of the castle, enough to last them through the remainder of spring and summer. The animals were each day, dressed, harvested, and delivered by an envoy with his wagon to the kitchen maids at Leoch to be tied and preserved with salts. They would hunt no more.</p><p>Exhaustive, it was. But Claire had adapted to things by the second day and in being Jamie's para she took the opportunity to learn and memorize the way that he did things. Lamb ingrained in her that one should always prepare for a day that may come. She was studious in these efforts.</p><p>The hours in the days were given to finding and killing game and the hours of the night were given to resting across from each other on their pallets, using all courage that a woman and man in ownership of each other's hearts could have not to touch, not to whisper their sweet appellations to one another. It was a torment Claire was fit to remain at odds with. </p><p>Night was descending upon the camp smoothly now. The stars gained vivacity as the sky blackened and the moon shone like a regal emblem in the dark silken heavens. Nocturnal life unfurled like petals of a new blossom, yearning towards the lunar gleam. Chirps, whistles, rustlings, and other guttural noises formed the cacophonous rhythm of the wilderness in the later hours.</p><p>A large flame burned at the center of camp, and torches lined their perimeter to keep any meandering creatures at bay. Man and animal included.</p><p>The back row of the woods lined the border of the Grants and Chisolms. A schism was born between the Grants and Mackenzies after Ellen and Brian Fraser's deception and in spite of the new contract that had been scripted to mend things, that chasm had never healthily sealed. It scarred as a keloid does, with foreign tissue linking the skin.</p><p>The Grants were known to trespass Mackenzie borders and 'harmlessly raid' the unsuspecting. It was often done in sport, Dougal said, whatever that purported, and Colum, for some inscrutable purpose, never demanded an audience with the Chieftain of Clan Grant to demand he rein his men in. Nonetheless, some of the men stood guard on vigilant rotation every few hours while others began to rest. Ioan and another man were in charge for this round, and their well formed figures stood out as phantoms against the dark backdrop of their environs.</p><p>Claire was stocked by the horses, doting on Elspeth and sharing some affection with Donas who was kindly receptive. Her cloak shielded her from the bitter arctic air that dispatched from the loch that was nearby.</p><p>Her fingers glued to the silky grain of Elspeth's skin, her eyes traced the figures in the camp until they landed on Jamie who was drabbling with his godfather until his godfather ambled to the crackling fire to take his pick of roasted trout and left him alone. He wrapped his Fraser tartan tightly around his expansive shoulders, his titian coils matching the flames even in the dark. He quirked his mouth like he sensed something, his ear twitching, and his eyes jumped up, landing right in the trap of her gaze. Claire's eyelashes bat coquettishly and she returned to Elspeth's, feeling her cheeks get hot.</p><p>"'Tis our final night o' the Mackenzie woods," Rupert's pudgy body was laxly strewn against a tall convergence of granite. "We'll be heading home for Leoch on the morrow. I dinna ken aboot ye lot, but I missed Mrs. Fitz' cheery countenance. I could use one of her bannocks right now, wi' honey and fried sausage and goat's melk."</p><p>The camp hummed in unison.</p><p>"I must be speaking for meself when I say it feels only yesterday we've arrived," another man said, gulping his water down firmly. "Ah, it was the bonniest bit of luck I've ever seen. I've caught thrice as much rabbit this season than I did last. But the Fraser lad killed four stags alone wi' a bow and arrow like a proper Hebridian. Brawest hunt I've seen in years."</p><p>Claire's eyes darted for him when his name was mentioned. He seemed unwilling to indulge the compliment. She wished that he would accept it. She believed in the sentiment especially because she watched it happen before her eyes over the past few days.</p><p>"Suppose it was a bit of luck after all," Jamie brushed roguely over his chest, smirking with an intent on Claire understood, for that was where he had kept the spray of heather, before it died. "For a first hunt wi' ye Mackenzies, I'd say it went better than I anticipated."</p><p>"And who taught ye tae shoot like that? Are ye no' handy wi' a rifle or musket?"  </p><p>Claire abandoned her task with her horse and lifted her skirts to step over the rubble and rejoin with the circle of Highlanders around the fire. She sat a couple of feet to Jamie's right where her blanket was already spread out over the soft grass. Ever since that night when Jamie stood before her, with care resplendant in his eyes, requesting her permission to sleep near her, the unspoken need to guard her, she made the choice to set her sleeping arrangement within arms reach of him.</p><p>It was just about the same approximation of space all the men shared, but it was different. She was beside <em>Jamie</em>. And he beside her.</p><p>"My father," Jamie said, eyes cautiously searching across the bright flame for his uncle.</p><p>Dougal was prone atop his pallet, hands folded behind his head. His tam was dressed over his face, preferring to sleep in total darkness. She didn't know how quite asleep he was. His belly moved in a rhythm of languor. But did a War Chief ever succumb to peaceful slumber in an exposed place such as this?</p><p>Beside her, Jamie resumed, his voice husky with nostalgia.</p><p>"When I was a lad of ten, my father carved my first hunting bow for me. For years he taught me how to be canny wi' it. He taught me how we must be closer to our target than if we used a gun, how we must out-maneuver the environment and even the nature of the animals themselves afore we go in for the kill. An arrow doesna go straight, as most people think it does. Nay, it moves in a curve like so over the wind. So ye must harness all yer concentration and be calmer than a windless sea when ye aim and fire. I'm verra good wi' firearms. Bowhunting is a verra special skill to have as weel, though."</p><p>"Ach. Guns are faster," insisted one of the men who leaned against the granite, twirling his unsheathed dirk from the pommel in his hand, the tip sparking with white from the moon light. Claire recognized him from the group Murtagh hunted with.  </p><p>"Mebbe so," Jamie said. "But that's why 'tis I that has killed the most stags and 'tis ye that has killed none."</p><p>Rupert and the others exploded with laughter. Even Murtagh's shoulders shook with what Claire presumed was his rendition of a hearty laugh. Claire cupped a hand over her mouth and giggled. She very much needed to laugh. It felt good. She wandered variably into wistful thought, wondering why things weren't like this more often with the men. Rupert and Jamie were cousins, for god's sake. Would they and the others have gotten on even better had the Frasers and Mackenzies never dealt with a tension that had separated a generation from each other?</p><p>"Tell us a story, Rupert," one of the men pipped from his pallet where he was turned on his side. "For we've nay drink to celebrate our successes and the night feels lonely wi'out it."</p><p>Indeed, there were no libations available for the hunting party. Inebriation of any degree was strictly forbidden. Even the most spirits-indulging Scotsman couldn't leave his gullet to chance for the upcoming seasons and spoil the hunt in favor of a dram or two. And so much danger existed in multiple potentialities in the wilderness in both day and night that having whiskey on hand would have done naught but lead the men to their own demise.</p><p>A wave of eager agreement stirred across the camp. Rupert pulled his body up to a hunch, contemplating it. The men truly were fond of his stories, for he liked to tell them in animated gestures and tones. </p><p>"Och!" the man finally exclaimed. "I've a verra funny one." He waggled his eye brows suggestively and the men made rowdy noises. Somehow, Dougal remained dead to the world.</p><p>Characteristically, Rupert began to regale the camp in ebullient Gaelic. Claire felt the tension of frustration from the language barrier tighten around the edges of her being until Jamie scooted closer to her and his voice came between them. </p><p>"Dinna fash, mo nighean donn," he delivered in a whisper. "'Tis ribald and indecent. Ill fitting for a lady of yer grooming."</p><p>She suppressed the urge to slap his arm.</p><p>"Nay," he went on, a subtle smirk playing on his mouth. "I dinna think ye shall be wanting to hear a story aboot a man hired to work on the estate of the wealthiest woman in the province. How his job was masonry, for the lady of the house desired a new wall in her garden. But the man had noticed what a lovely rich array of flowers were in her garden. Ye'd probably be able to name them all, Sassenach. Each hour he found himself fixated on the flowers and none of the other workers kent why. At the end of each day, he'd pluck one flower from her garden, and each night he was compelled to self abuse."</p><p>A blush coated his cheeks and ears. </p><p>"For he was told that flowers often resemble a woman's quinny."</p><p>"Oh," Claire whispered. She was well familiar with the allusion.</p><p>"He'd been raised a god fearing man. So he'd never touched a woman, much less lingered on one for too long. But once he went out into the world, man corrupted the view of the pious and chaste man. And if there is anything that can encourage a man to abandon his post and shed his code of beliefs, it is a woman and the parts of her person that are the core to a man's desire." His eyes bore into her momentously, turquoise spheres relinquishing the briefest intensity.    </p><p>She swallowed. Laughter undulated among the men as Rupert approached this part.</p><p>"It came to a point where he was so consumed wi' lust he couldna work in the garden wi'out having a terrible cockstand. So the worker thought to himself, he must find himself a woman. And so he did. A hoor. But a clean one. And ye ken wha' he said when the time came to do the deed? Weel, he said, no' only does a woman compare to a flower, soft, and beautiful, but he didna ken women had nectar as weel."</p><p>The noise from the men became unruly. Dougal let out a warning grunt. Memory of Jamie's fingers thrusting inside Claire's walls with the gradual control of a sculptor shaping wet clay wafted through her. How he had tasted her on his fingers with eagerness. <em>Slippery</em>, he'd said. Christ. She was wet between her thighs right now.  </p><p>"It was nay wonder bees were so drawn to flowers as he," Jamie concluded.  </p><p>He gave her a smile that crumbled the remaining sense of propriety she had flimsily groped for.</p><p>"Since we've such an early wake, I'm going to look for some wild herbs now while I can," Claire announced extemporaneously. She rose to her feet, snatching up her medicine bag up. </p><p>Murtagh scrunched his face up. "At this hour? 'Tis dangerous to be alone in the woods at night and ye're a wee lass." </p><p>"If my safety should be such a pressing concern, I suppose one of you will have to come with me, then," Claire said purposefully. She knew none of the men were keen to desert their positions of comfort amid their rapt attention with Rupert's titillating story.</p><p>The silence would have been awkward were it not for the fact that Claire had already been anticipting this reaction.</p><p>Then Jamie cleared his throat. </p><p>"I'll attend to ye, Mistress."</p><p>By god, that man could read her tells easily. </p><p>Keeping her expression firm, Claire nodded. "Alright then. Bring a torch."</p><p>Her intentions were quite patent as she allowed Jamie to lead her away from the camp into the low canopy of trees. She hadn't even told him where she wanted to go. Eventually, Jamie pushed one hand back without turning his head, his other hand raised as he carried the torch to light their way. Claire slid her hand into the warm protective invitation of his and felt the twin flames of their desire sear throughout the network of her body. She shivered and Jamie clenched his hand around hers as if to say <em>I know.</em></p><p>Securing the torch in a twist of tree branches once they were out of the camp's line of site, Jamie turned to face Claire but her arm had already swung around his neck, crushing his mouth to hers. They sighed their reliefs at the much needed contact into eah other's mouths, hands immediately occupied with the napes of each other's heads, fingers tousling and gripping each other's curls. </p><p>"Do you think they believed me?" Claire said on a giggle as she sought oxygen. </p><p>"I hope so, Sassenach," Jamie licked his lips. "Best pull up some weeds on yer way back so we dinna look suspicious. And get our hands dirty."</p><p>"I very much intend for us get our hands dirty, James Fraser." </p><p>She thought she had been impatient and overwhelmed with arousal but she heard a rumbling growl emit from Jamie's throat and he reached between the tabs of her cloak, caressing her breast with the delicacy of a bear. </p><p>"Recounting that story to ye, afore the men, wi'out them kenning my thoughts or my memories. I ken evera man was thinking about the last lass they held in their arms. But I was thinking of ye, and how I'd like to touch ye so again, how I need to." His hands made a work of her bodice, unzipping only halfway southwards, "I willna bare yer breasts to the cool air, Sassenach. I only need tae feel a bit more of yer fine skin to sate my memory." She moaned as she felt him pinch her nipple tightly.</p><p>His tongue thrust into her mouth and her reciprocation was no less ardent. </p><p>"Touch me then, Jamie."</p><p>"Do ye think ye can keep quiet while I do so, lass?" Jamie pressed his forehead to hers.</p><p>"<em>Aye</em>," Claire retorted with a grin. </p><p>She hoicked the wool drape of his kilt up and felt over the brass muscles of his thighs until she wrapped her hand around him and he let out a strangled yelp. "What about you? I can't allow you to return to camp with a painful cockstand."</p><p>"I'll...I'll manage."</p><p>She stroked him firmly. "You don't have to."                                                    </p><p>"Ho- ho god." She felt Jamie buck upwards into her tight grasp until her fist met the base of his grown. "A fair consideration, mo chridhe. I willna forget. Spread yer legs."  Claire obeyed, moaning softly as she felt Jamie's fingers slip inside her depths. "Give me yer mouth again so that we both might keep our voices down." She did, annoucing her pleasure to his tongue and finding asylum between their lips. </p><p>They writhed and kissed as silently as possible beneath the pale glow of the moonlight and the whistling friction of the trees until they found dual coarsing release in each other's hands, wracking and shivering and then at the last quiet as the night itself.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~ ✽ ✾ ✿ ❁ ~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>wow! this is the longest chapter i've written yet omg. thank you guys so much for reading. please comment your favorite parts and share your thoughts with me on this chapter. &lt;3</p><p>me personally, my favorite portion is the final two passages with jamie and claire on the hunting party because it's a different setting for them, away from castle leoch, and shows yet another facet to jamie and claire. also i quite like the way it ends.</p><p>p.s. if you want to find me on twitter and say hello, i'm @jaymiefraser</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>comments feed the soul, the soul feeds the mind, the mind feeds the fingers, the fingers feed you!</p><p>if you want to holla at me, i'm @jaymiefraser on twitter. :-)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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